Seeing Double
by ZackAttack96
Summary: After a catastrophic accident, the Doctor and crew arrive on a parallel universe where they are a TV show!  Is it just plain fluke or are there more sinister forces at work?  Read on to find out...
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The TARDIS doors were flung open and a small green humanoid creature was unceremoniously dumped onto the brown dusty ground. It scrambled backwards in terror, then leapt to its feet. The Doctor was framed in the doorway, his usual cheery demeanour replaced by a solemn anger.

"And don't you _ever_ try to hijack my ship like that again, or you'll not just be dumped onto the ground!" snapped the Time Lord. He stepped back and the doors crashed shut in front of him.

Sitting on the top step of one of the two staircases, Amy and Rory were giggling uncontrollably. Or, at least, they would be if they weren't both tied to a banister support, their wrists bound behind their backs and gags shoved roughly into their mouths.

The Doctor turned from the doors and brushed the dust off his jacket, then sneezed as the particles went up his nose.

"Sorry about the delay, you two," he said, "You can't rush these things, you know."

"Et eh gagfh off!" yelled Amy through the gag.

The Doctor's brow furrowed and he took a step forward, turning his head a little bit closer. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"

"Et...eh...gagfh...off!" she screamed. The Doctor darted up the stairs.

"Hang on, I'll get the gag off. What was that?"

Amy gave no reply but an icy stare. The Doctor looked shaken. "What?"

"Just get these cable ties off, will you?" she snarled through gritted teeth.

With show and panache, the Doctor whipped out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it in the vague direction of the bonds. There came a crack, a puff of acrid smoke, and the cable ties disappeared into the cavity underneath the control room, probably to remain there for the next twenty-odd years.

Rory ripped off the gag and started massaging the circulation back into his wrists. "So what part of, we need your help come quickly, didn't you understand, then?" he demanded.

The Doctor shrugged. "As I said, I was having problems of my own."

Amy's husband chuckled. "Like whether to have another mojito or switch to mimosas?" he retorted.

The Time Lord looked embarrassed. "Well, I, uh, ahem, suppose I was enjoying myself quite a lot," he admitted.

Amy gave a devilish grin. "Oncoming Storm? Oncoming hangover, more like."

The laughter filled the control room for about half a minute, until everybody recovered sufficiently to stand up.

Doing something completely unprecedented, the Doctor slid down the banister to the console. Only trouble was, his shoes provided more grip on the floor than he expected, and he cannoned headfirst into the console. There cascaded a shower of sparks from the central column, and three cables fell from the ceiling. The time rotor began heaving up and down.

The Doctor leapt back from the console and looked on in horror. Controls began activating themselves spontaneously and at apparent random. The cooling system gauges went off the scale, then exploded, jettisoning hot coolant all around that side of the console. The forwards/backwards controls clicked into reverse, then both handbrakes disengaged simultaneously. The dematerialise lever slammed forward, the atom accelerator zipped up to full power, then burnt out, and the space/time throttles went all the way forward, the yellow lights flickering slightly. Even the Heisenberg Focusing Device couldn't cope with monitoring either the position _or_ state of an atom, the gearstick slotting randomly into different positions. The inertial dampers and gyroscopic stabilizers kicked in, and the TARDIS lurched to uprightness once again. Finally, the whole circuit blew with another shower of sparks and, rather alarmingly, a tongue of flame, and the whole control room went dark. All the controls clicked back to default.

Silence. A mild creak.

Then every device stored in the ceiling cascaded down, dangling on their cables. Amy screamed and cringed, then, ever so slowly, uncoiled.

The Doctor extended the head of the sonic screwdriver, held it aloft, and pressed the button. Emergency lighting blinked on, casting the control room in a harsh, fluorescent glow.

He circled the console, randomly pressing buttons and flicking switches. Nothing.

He looked up to Amy and Rory.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so, so sorry. But we're dead."


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"What do you mean, we're dead?" exclaimed Amy. "We just go out there, see where we are, and fix the TARDIS. Simple."

"Yeah, but it's not as easy as that. We fell out the Time Vortex. For me, I get to say again. For you, it'll be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Hopefully."

"But how do you _fall out_ the Time Vortex?" asked Rory. "Is that even possible?"

"Not supposedly, no. However, plenty of people do. Anyway, we are in one of two predicaments. Either we are in the Void between universes, or else we have got lucky and landed on a parallel world."

"Well, let's find out then!"

Before the Doctor could stop her, Amy had activated the door release lever and bounded down the ramp.

"Amy, no! All the controls...are...dead...oh," said the Doctor weakly. The doors opened.

"You said it yourself, Doctor. The door control is the only purely mechanical device in the TARDIS," remarked Rory.

The Doctor frowned. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?" he said.

The two men followed Amy out the doors and into the sunlight.

The Time Lord laughed. "Always happens this way, doesn't it?" he said. "Any time something goes wrong, I always end up on Earth. Which isn't a bad thing," he added quickly upon receiving a dirty look from Rory.

Amy was jubilant. "See? I told you! Now we just need parts."

The Doctor looked sceptical. "Oh, yeah? Well – just you tell me where we are going to get fiftieth century components in the twenty-first century!"

Rory's wife deflated. "Oh right. I see."

"Yeah. So there we are then."

"There we are."

Silence reigned once again. Then Amy spoke.

"Can we go and explore?" she asked. "If this is a parallel world, then it won't matter if I meet myself, will it? It won't be a paradox, will it?"

The Doctor held her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. "No, Amy, that's not the point. You can't meet yourself. It's just not physically possible. It's not meant to be. It won't cause a paradox, granted, but it will unravel the very fabric of reality itself. In short, yes, it will matter." He sighed. "Look, if you must explore, just be careful, all right?"

Amy nodded excitedly, then slipped from the Doctor's hold and disappeared into the crowds of the street. "I'll be back in an hour!" she called over her shoulder.

The Doctor turned to Rory and shook his head. "I don't know if I even know her, Rory," he said. "I just hope you know her better."

Rory nodded. "Yep. That's the sort of thing she does regularly."

Amy strolled down the high street, peering into shop windows and stopping at a bus stop. Everything seemed exactly the same as her universe. Even the adverts were for the same movies as were showing in Leadworth.

But then she arrived at Currys.

First appearances were identical. The sign was the same. The staff were their usual, unhelpful selves. The TVs were still tuned in to BBC One.

Amy, on impulse, walked inside. If there were going to be any technological differences, she reasoned, they would be in an electricals shop, surely?

She wandered down the lines of TVs, then stopped abruptly.

It wasn't a robot that caught her eye, or some sort of holographic TV.

It was an advert.

The Doctor appeared on the screen in the beginning of a series of short clips. Amy caught a glimpse of River Song, the Pandorica, Rory as a centurion, and then...

Her mouth fell open as she saw herself, on the screen, being shot by Roranicus.

It was all exactly the same as she remembered, down to every little detail.

Then the advert finished, and the announcer's voice came on. "Doctor Who, tonight at seven, only on BBC one."

Amy started as a blonde assistant gasped. "Oh my word, it's you! It's really you!"

Others began to gather round in a group. Cries of "It's her!" and "She's here!" began filling the room. Amy started backing away slightly, her hands held defensively in front of her.

"No... there must be some mistake...I'm not on TV...no, really, you're wrong..."

Then, she turned and fled.

Back at the TARDIS, Rory was holding some sort of tool for the Doctor. The Time Lord had told Rory it's name, but it was too complicated to remember.

The Doctor was strapped into the harness in the inspection pit underneath the console, unscrewing an access panel in the central stalk. He had had to rotate himself onto his front to reach the panel, and his arms were beginning to strain. _Only a few more turns_, he told himself.

From the inspection pit came a clatter, a snapping sound and a thud. Then, Rory winced as a fusillade of curses and blasphemy hit him like a sledgehammer.

"Drop something, did you, Doctor?" he asked.

Another stream of hurtful language turned the air blue and Rory backed away. "Look, I'll go and get another rope," he said.

He didn't have a chance, however, because at that moment, Amy burst through the doors, sweat dripping off her face. She made a beeline for Rory and fell into his arms, babbling incoherently.

"Amy, what is it? Slow down and take a deep breath. You're hyperventilating!"

"No... I'm...not..." she panted. "I've...been...running...quite hard."

"What is it?" said the Time Lord as he emerged from the inspection pit.

Amy had managed to recover some composure. "We're a TV show," she said.

The Doctor's face hardened in disbelief. "What?" he said.

"You. Me. Rory. River. We're all on TV here!" she repeated.

Rory looked confused. "How can we be on TV?" he asked. "We're real! There weren't any cameras anywhere we saw."

"That's what worries me," continued the Doctor, "Which means that the scriptwriter is able to somehow know exactly what's going on in our lives."

He turned to Amy. "When's the next showing of the programme?"

"Tonight at seven o'clock," she said. The Doctor darted over to the console. "Well, then, let's go, then!"

Then, he stopped. "Ah. Yes. No TARDIS. Right. We'll just have to wait, then. That's rubbish."

Seven o'clock rolled around pretty quickly from the Doctor's perspective and pretty slowly from everybody else's. He had made some progress with repairs, having ascertained that the main control nodule had shorted, frying other control nodules. The good news was that none of the actual controls were damaged, and that they could still lock the doors. The bad news was that the Doctor didn't have a spare main control nodule. So, he was rustling one up from scratch using some components he had found lying around on the shelves in the library. After giving them all a dunking in the swimming pool and drying them out, he had pulled out his sonic screwdriver and a length of solder, and began combining them. Two hours later, he was roughly halfway there, just putting the finishing touches to the fifteenth of seventy branching nodes.

Amy startled him by knocking on the door, making his hand slip and accidentally roasting a capacitor. "It's starting," she yelled through the door.

The Doctor muttered something under his breath, stood up and breezed out the door past his companion.

Rory was already sitting on the jump seat, watching the monitor screen in utter amazement. 'The Pandorica Opens' was just beginning. The Doctor and Amy were standing in front of a wall, and on the wall was written 'Hello Sweetie' followed by space/time coordinates.

The Doctor plonked down next to Rory on the seat. "It's identical in every detail, even down to the font of the letters!" he exclaimed. "We've some serious investigating to do."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I am SO sorry for keeping you all waiting on this next instalment. What with exams and whatever, I've just had no time. I hope you all can forgive me. The next chapter could be roughly the same time again away, but then again, perhaps not. Just to give you advanced notice…

**DISCLAIMER:** The BBC owns Doctor Who. I do not own the BBC. Therefore, I do not own Doctor Who. QED

CHAPTER THREE

"Who makes this show again?" asked the Doctor.

"The BBC, why?" replied Amy.

"Because that's where we're going next! Come on!"

The Doctor pulled on his jacket and stepped outside the police box, Amy and Rory following. The Time Lord made his way onto the main street and hailed a cab. "Broadcasting House, please," he said.

The cabbie smirked. "I'd have thought hot-shots like you would have proper drivers!"

Amy leapt in. "Yeah, well, you know, budget cuts and all that."

As the back door slid open and the trio embarked, the cabbie chuckled to himself and shook his head.

Half an hour of battling with heavy London traffic passed, and they arrived outside the BBC. The Doctor pulled a wad of cash out his pocket, and proceeded to throw a steady stream of currency around the back of the cab like confetti. Finally, he found a fifty pound note and shoved it through the hole in the dividing screen, but the cabbie was already out his door and staring through the doorway in amazement.

"Keep the change," said the Doctor, and left.

It took a couple of seconds for the cabbie to realise that they'd left, but when he did, he turned. "Oi, mate!" he called as he scooped up some notes. "You've left behind your...your...heck, what is this money?"

The three stopped outside the main doors. "If we really are famous, couldn't we just go in the front door?" suggested Amy.

The Doctor shook his head. "If we really are famous, then bonzo at the door would know we'd entered twice, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose so," she muttered.

"Round the back, then!" cried the Doctor, and they darted off.

After using the sonic on three doors and a padlock, they at last arrived somewhere.

The roof of a building.

"This can't be a real roof, can it? It's a set, right?" asked Rory.

The Doctor agreed. "Right. So, we're looking for..." He trailed off as his blood ran cold, for from around the corner trundled a Dalek drone.

"The Doctor has been located!" it intoned. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"Get down!" yelled the Time Lord, and they ducked behind a fan block, which then proceeded to erupt in a shower of sparks and a...bang?

"Dalek guns don't make a bang," said the Doctor, "so what did?"

Just then, a shout of "Cut!" floated across the set, and a centrifugal bell rang. The Doctor, Amy and Rory slowly stood up from their hiding place. An angry-looking Scotsman was making his way towards them.

"What's Arthur doing here?" he demanded. "Get him off set!"

"Hold on a minute! I'm not-" said Rory before the Doctor interrupted him.

"Ah, yes, are you the scriptwriter?" said the Time Lord.

The Scotsman looked taken aback. "Er...yes?" he ventured. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh, no reason, just that I'm the Doctor, and you seem to know an awful lot about my life and the life of my companions, Amy and Rory here."

The scriptwriter laughed. "Ah, yes, very funny, I see. Okay, you can come off the act, now, Matt. You're off camera."

The Doctor would have replied, but at that moment, one of the cameramen suddenly gasped. "What the..." he muttered.

Amy, Rory, scriptwriter and Doctor all turned to look. The scriptwriter got the second shock of the day.

Amy, Rory and Doctor were walking towards the set as well.

They finally noticed the hush and looked around them. Then their eyes came to rest on the little group in the middle of the set.

The one looking like the Doctor walked slowly over. "Is this some sort of prank?" he asked. All the scriptwriter could do was shake his head. "Then _who are they_? Are they new stunt doubles or something?"

The real Amy decided to take the lead. "Look," she said, "we're the Doctor, Amy and Rory. We were in the TARDIS when we...well, to be honest, _I_ don't actually know what happened, but the Doctor does. Anyhow, we ended up landing on a parallel universe - here. We're from a different universe."

It would appear that women are far more believing in these circumstances than men, because the other Doctor and Rory just laughed, whereas the other Amy's mouth dropped open. "Oh...my..." was as far as she could get before rationality went out the window and words started streaming.

"Do you not see?" she babbled, "We're pretending to be _them_! They're the real deal!"

The other Doctor didn't look convinced. "That's _apparently_ the case. I still reckon it's some sort of prank, however."

Having remained silent for the whole exchange, the real Doctor finally spoke up. "Look, tell you what, I'll prove it to you." He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the sonic screwdriver. "Yours only has a light, doesn't it? Well, watch this." He then pointed it at one of the set lights. With a bang and a puff of acrid smoke, the light functioned no more.

That seemed to be proof enough, because introductions started flowing thick and fast. The pairs needed no introduction and the screenwriter introduced himself as Steven Moffat.

Upon detecting some very quizzical looks from the crews, Matt recommended adjourning elsewhere, somewhere perhaps slightly more private than a busy film set. Karen suggested the prop room, but then Amy cut in, a wicked gleam in her eye.

"I think I know just the place," she grinned. Karen's eyes widened and she took a half step backwards.

"You don't mean..." she gasped.

Amy nodded. "Let's go to the TARDIS, shall we, Doctor?"

It was pouring rain now in Central London. Most of the pedestrians had scuttled for cover somewhere to either wait it out or get public transport. The traffic was heavier than usual as a result of the rain.

Another black cab pulled up in front of an alleyway and the seven alighted. The driver rolled down his window as much as he dared and shouted, "Are you sure this is where you want, mate? Sure I can't take you anywhere else?"

"No, that'll be fine, thanks," said Rory.

Matt was about to pull out his wallet when the Doctor stopped him. "No, no, I've got this," the Time Lord insisted. Out came the wad of cash and the driver once again became fifty pounds and twenty thousand credits richer. It was just a pity he couldn't use the credits for another thousand years.

All the rest had already zipped down the alleyway and were standing, shivering, at the TARDIS. Karen was all but jumping up and down with excitement.

"This is it, isn't it? Oh my word, this is really it!" she exclaimed.

The Doctor grinned. "Do you want to go inside?" he asked. Karen squealed shamelessly.

He snapped his fingers. The doors swung open. Matt's mouth dropped. Arthur's eyes lolled, and he looked like he'd keel over any minute. Karen, however, kept her cool and sauntered inside.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I apologise (again!) for the length of time this has taken to upload. See what exams do to you…

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Doctor Who. I would love to, but I don't. So there.

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the group followed Karen inside, the Doctor beaming at having multiple people to show the TARDIS to at once.

Matt started muttering under his breath. "Bigger on the inside…" he mumbled. "Sure enough…"

Arthur was also mumbling something to himself. "Another dimension…"

Karen, however, wasn't doing something so sedate as mumbling. She circumnavigated the console, darted up the stairs and down again, descended into the inspection pit below the control room and rose again, all within the space of fifteen seconds.

"It's exactly the same in every detail! How's that possible?" she wondered out loud.

The Doctor was immediately at her side. "That's the point, you see," he said, "because the chances of you correctly guessing the layout and appearance of the TARDIS would look like a barcode number to one against. So, obviously Steven must get some sort of inspiration from somewhere. Our objective, then, is to find this source of inspiration and why it's doing this."

Steven then spoke up. "Approximately how long ago did you actually _do_ the Pandorica, if you see what I mean?"

The Doctor thought for a moment. "Uh…about two months ago. I think. No, wait, three months ago."

"Right. In that case, I'm writing the scripts _long_ before you're living the reality. We generally aim to have the next series filmed before the end of the previous series so that the guys in editing have plenty of time to tweak it."

"So that means that we're now looking for some sort of rift in time, now. Great." The Doctor's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Amy then appeared next to Karen. "But this isn't the first series, right? There were more before that, yeah? So who wrote them?"

Steven shook his head. "It wasn't me, anyway. Russell T Davies was the executive producer for the previous series."

The Doctor allowed a slight grin to play at the corner of his mouth. "The plot thickens…" he said. "Do you have any connections with Russell? Anything at all?"

Steven thought for a moment. "Nope. I was born in Paisley and he was born in Swansea two years later. I went to the University of Glasgow and he went to Oxford. Our only connection is the BBC."

"Right. Nothing, then," said the Time Lord, then frowned and looked at his watch. "I'd better get back to repairs. Amy, make sure they don't break anything in their…excitement."

He slunk off.

Half an hour later, Matt was wandering the corridors in boredom, hands in pockets, when he noticed a door ajar and the light on. Through the crack, he spied the Doctor, soldering iron in hand. Matt knocked on the doorpost.

"Come in," came the reply, and he entered.

The Doctor looked up from his work. "Oh, it's you," he said, and lowered his gaze again to the circuitry.

"Mind if I sit down?" asked Matt. The Doctor nodded his consent, and Matt pulled up a chair next to the Doctor's.

"Well, Amy is giving Karen the grand tour complete with giggling, Arthur and Rory are sitting on the stairs in the control room nattering about this and that, and Steven is leafing through the TARDIS manual in amazement." At the last bit of Matt's speech, the Doctor's eyebrows rose.

"I thought I'd chucked it out long ago," he said with a slight hint of astonishment.

"Apparently not. According to the TARDIS, she'd hidden it from you in case you did it again."

The Time Lord grunted and returned to his work once again.

Silence reigned for another half minute, then Matt spoke again. "Crazy day for you, huh?"

The Doctor turned. "To complete the quote, it's been a lot, yes, it has. I mean, you imagine that you just discovered that your whole entire life was a television show, and that there are copies of you that aren't even your _species_, let alone you." His voice started rising in volume. "And, of course, that one day in your life that you discover this, your only ticket out has broken down, and when you're trying to fix it, _people keep interrupting you_, so LEAVE…ME…ALONE!"

Matt backed away like a scolded puppy. He was about to leave when the Doctor called after him. "Wait. I'm sorry. It's not your fault. It's probably nearly as confusing for you as well. Pretending to be a completely fictional character that turns out to exist."

The Doctor leapt up and extended his hand. "Proud to have you aboard, Matt."

"Good to be aboard, Doctor," replied Matt.

"Let's go rift hunting!" said the Doctor.

The Doctor and his double burst into the control room, the Time Lord flinging his jacket over everybody's heads and landing it perfectly on the hat stand. After a little twirl, he grabbed the internal com.

"Amy and Karen, wherever you are, get ready for flight!"

Matt looked confused. "I thought you said the TARDIS was broken."

The Doctor grinned. "That's quite correct. _Was_ broken. I haven't completely fixed it, but a few of the core systems are back online. We should be OK for a simple hop in physical space. _Should_ being the operative word, there."

He yanked up the door release lever and twiddled some lovely twiddly things that looked professional but actually served no purpose whatsoever, then pulled the dematerialise lever. The TARDIS started wheezing and groaning as usual, albeit perhaps slightly more laboured. Then, the wheezing and groaning stopped and everything became calm and peaceful. The Doctor whirled round to see Steven with his hand on the space handbrake, having just turned it.

"What?" he said. "That's what you're meant to do, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it's boring, now! We're just trotting along now, nice and calm." The Doctor was getting irritated that yet another person could fly the TARDIS better than him.

"Bit of a River Song moment, there, eh, Doctor?" came the sound of Amy's voice from the top of the stairs. She and Karen were giggling hysterically and leaning into each other for support as they made their way down the stairs. The Doctor sighed.

"Just look at yourselves! Like two little schoolgirls! Honestly…"

Amy plucked at his braces. "I can be a schoolgirl if you like…" she said seductively. He coughed and stepped back.

"Well, _cough_, I didn't mean…well, _cough_, ur…"

He spun round and pulled a lever on the console. There was an ever so slight thump, and he wound down the space handbrake and lifted up the engine release lever with a nice clank. He lifted his jacket from the stand and threw it on.

"Now, then, instructions. Rifts in time and space never occur naturally. Well, hardly ever. Any natural ones I'd know about, and this isn't one I know about. Quod erat demonstrandum. Therefore, something…or some_one_…must have created this rift. Whatever or whoever it is might therefore still be there. So, we need to be very…careful…indeed. Got that?"

Everyone nodded dumbly, the gravity of the situation beginning to dawn on them. With a nod, the group walked single-file down the ramp to the doors. The Doctor turned once again.

"Just to recap – be careful." He turned the knob on the Yale lock, and pulled the door open. "The creator could still…be…there…" He trailed off.

In front of him was a Dalek Paradigm.

**Please**** review, everybody! They remind me to update…**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Just to give you advanced warning, the next update might not be for a while. I'll try to work on chapter 6 if I've the time. Meanwhile, however, enjoy! Just to clarify something else, however – I've had a lot of questions as to what a Dalek Paradigm is. Towards the end of 'Victory of the Daleks', when the five new multicoloured Daleks arrive, they introduce themselves as the new Dalek Paradigm – Strategist (blue), Scientist (orange), Eternal (yellow), Drone (red) and Supreme (white). Just to clear that up.**

CHAPTER FIVE

"Get back inside!" the Doctor yelled, fully expecting to feel the searing heat of a Dalek energy bolt between his shoulder blades. It was a mad-dash scramble to be back into the TARDIS, but within five seconds, everyone was back inside and the door closed with a reassuring thud.

To the Doctor's surprise, he wasn't dead, and the Daleks weren't at that very minute pounding the doors with a withering hail of energy beams. His brow furrowed, and he darted over to the scanner. He flicked on the video screen, and his eyes widened further. He turned to Amy in exasperation.

"They haven't attacked us!" he exclaimed.

Amy nodded slowly and screwed her face up into a look of mock concentration. "Hmm, yeah, you're right, Doctor," she said sarcastically, "You're a real genius having figured that out. What would we ever do-"

"Yeah, yeah, all right, come off it!" said the Time Lord. "I get the point. The other point, however, is _why_ haven't they?"

"Tell you what," announced Karen. "I'll go and ask."

She flung open the TARDIS door and stepped outside. She shoved her face up into the eyestalk of the Supreme Dalek.

"Excuse me," she said, "but my friend the Doctor would like to know why you haven't killed us yet. Can you enlighten us?"

The Dalek said nothing.

"Perhaps you didn't hear. Why haven't you killed us?"

The Dalek remained unresponsive.

"Is there a reason why you're not speaking?"

The Dalek was still mute.

"Oh, yes, I forgot. YOU'RE A _PROP_!"

Satisfied, she turned to the rest of the TARDIS. "We're in the prop room, ya dimwits!" she yelled. "You can come out, they won't exterminate you!"

Chastised, the Doctor led the way out of the police box. Karen went over to a light switch and flicked it, the harsh fluorescent lights blinking on from above. All around them were various props that the Doctor knew as reality.

He wandered down the aisles between shelving units, gazing all about him in wonder. It was nearly as awe-inspiring as Henry Van Statten's museum, except even better. A Dalek eyestalk here, a Silurian blaster pistol there, a small pile of Cyberman armour plates in the corner, a Carrionite orb propped against a Sycorax sword. All these things sitting so casually, but each one more deadly than the last.

Shaking the amazement out of his features, the Doctor was back to business, but Rory still couldn't comprehend it. "So these are all…models…of the things we know to be…real?" he said with a slight stammer. "But that's…"

"Impossible, yes," said the Doctor, "so that's why we have to find the rift. And whatever caused it."

He pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, adjusted the settings, extended the head and pressed the switch. Somewhere behind him, one of the light fittings shattered with a shower of sparks. He winced, and muttered under his breath. "One hundred and twenty-_six_, you prat, not one hundred and twenty-seven." He tried again, and underneath the usual buzz was a faint beeping. He pointed the screwdriver at the wall and started slowly turning on the spot. The beeping reduced to nothing, then faded in again, growing stronger and stronger until it was at its loudest.

The Doctor grinned. "I have a fix!" he said.

"On what?" asked Steven.

The Time Lord swivelled. "Ah, yes, hello, Steven, you were very quiet lately, so quiet in fact that I forgot you were there. That's a very good question, because it's not on time energy. No, no, no – it's on non-terrestrial technology. To put it more simply, it's fixed on anything that isn't twenty-first century Earth."

He then turned to the rest of the group. "Off we go, then!"

The Doctor flung open the door and marched through it. There came a clatter, a yelp and a rather large crashing sound. Several large cooking pots came rolling out the door, followed by a small hostess trolley. The Doctor came out again with an apron that had draped itself across his shoulder.

"Ah," he said, "Storage cupboard."

Arthur nodded slowly. "Yep," he said faintly. The Doctor opened the door adjacent to the storage cupboard.

"This one?" he asked.

"Yep," repeated Arthur.

The Doctor led the way.

He walked swiftly down the corridor, following the beeping sound on the sonic screwdriver. He turned the corner at a junction and continued down another corridor, this one plusher than the usual service corridors. It had a plush red carpet and panelled walls, for instance. The Doctor walked past a door, then stopped and went back to it. He pointed to it.

"What's through here?" he asked. "Not the female toilets or something, are they?"

Steven checked the room ID. "No, it's just a dressing room. Could be either gender in there. Why do you ask?"

"Because the screwdriver says that there's non-terrestrial technology in there," came the reply. The Doctor reached for the door handle, then half withdrew his hand. He extended it again, withdrew it, and rested his hand on the handle.

"Either gender, you said?"

"Yeah," said Steven.

"Hmm…" frowned the Time Lord. He hesitated for a moment, then knocked on the door. There came a sort of scuffling and a slight whining noise.

"Come in," said a voice through the door.

The Doctor depressed the handle and pushed the door open, fully expecting to see a massive rift generator sitting in the middle of the room.

There wasn't.

What he _did_ see, however, was the muzzle of an alpha meson blaster that was held, rock-steady, pointing directly between his eyes.

And, he saw the woman at the other end.

A woman with dark blonde curls.

A very familiar woman.

"River!" exclaimed the Doctor. "What are you doing here?"

River lowered the gun. "Well _you_ took your time, dear!" she said. "I was just about to send a message to your psychic paper. We've got big problems this time."

She turned and levelled the blaster at another woman who was kneeling, terrified, on the floor with her hands behind her head. Upon seeing the Doctor, she visibly sighed with relief.

"Matt! Thank goodness you're here! Can you please tell this madwoman that…"

River jabbed her forehead with the gun. "Less of the madwoman," she growled.

The other woman continued. "This _woman_, that I'm not a clone _or_ an android!"

Amy sighed. "Not another one!"

The Doctor twisted the gun out of River's grasp before she could do anything to stop him.

"Honestly, do I have to say it every time? No guns! Not ever!"

He threw it over his shoulder in the general direction of the doorway. Steven leapt forward and grabbed it before it hit the floor.

"Well how else do you expect me to react whenever I come in here and discover that an identical copy of me is sitting putting the finishing touches to her mascara?" demanded River angrily.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, River, use your intelligence. She's not a clone, she's an _actress_. We're in a parallel universe where our lives are a TV show."

River frowned. "TV?"

Amy put a hand on her arm. "We'll explain later."

She went over to a quivering Alex Kingston and lifted her to her feet.

"So…I'm pretending to be her?" said Alex. "Does that mean Elizabeth Corday exists, too?"

"I don't know. Possibly," said the Doctor. "I haven't really bothered to ask around. Tell you what, let's all discuss it over a nice cup of tea. _After_ we've tracked down the rift."

"But hang on a second," continued Alex. "You're not Matt, then? You're the Doctor? The real Doctor?"

"Yes," said the man in question. "Yes I am."

Thus another two members were added to the rift-hunters.

**Please review, everybody, and let me know what you think!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I must apologise once again for the delay in uploading. I've had a stinker of a fortnight, so that might explain some things. Hopefully will update sooner next time.**

CHAPTER SIX

By now, the rift-hunting group had swelled from three time travellers to three time travellers, a scientist from the future, four actors and a screenwriter. The Doctor led the way, screwdriver buzzing and bleeping as he swung it to and fro, the rest of the group simply trailing along behind him, feeling just like sheep.

"Baa," muttered Matt to confirm this feeling, not speaking to anybody in particular. The Doctor heard it and stopped. He turned in confusion.

"Baa?" he asked, thoroughly bamboozled.

"Baa," confirmed Amy.

"Baa?" the Time Lord repeated.

"Baa," said Alex.

"Moo?" the Doctor ventured. Everybody just stared. "No?" he said.

The group shook their heads in unison. The Doctor mustered any remaining dignity he had left, and turned down the corridor again. He held the screwdriver at stomach level, staring down into the tiny readout on the outside of the inner core as it pulsated with symbols and swirls that only he would probably ever understand.

Once again, the rift-hunters moved off. The Doctor turned a corner and went into another corridor, then accidentally bumped into a lone Dalek trundling towards him.

"Oops! Sorry, Dalek," he said, and continued down the corridor.

Then he stopped.

"Wait a sec…" he muttered.

He swung round just in time to see the Dalek doing the same.

"You are the Doctor!" it squawked. "You must be exterminated!"

"GET DOWN!" yelled the Doctor. Everybody threw themselves to the ground as the Dalek opened fire. The first energy bolt went wide, but the second came far too close to its mark, perfectly slicing through Steven's belt. His face froze in horror.

"That was an Elliot Rhodes belt!" he moaned. The Doctor turned in amazement.

"Honestly, nearly exterminated and all you worry about is your belt! Typical human."

From beside his right ear came a click and a whirring sound. River had pulled out her gun and had cranked a knob on the side. "I'll deal with this," she said.

The Doctor grabbed her arm. "You know an alpha meson blaster is useless against a fully-functional Dalek, right? It's suicide!"

"Doctor, just trust me," she said, then stood up and faced the Dalek. She raised her arm.

"Exterminate!" screamed the Dalek.

"Precisely," said River, and pulled the trigger.

There was a second's silence.

Then it seemed as if the whole world ignited.

The Dalek exploded, fragments of its bonded polycarbide casing ripping through the wooden panelling of the corridor. A secondary explosion shook the building, and a fireball whooshed overhead. Windows looking into offices shattered, glass fragments raining down seemingly from everywhere at once. An alarm bell began to ring, but it seemed rather feeble compared to the carnage everywhere else.

River had flung herself to the floor before the initial onslaught, and was now commando crawling back towards the Doctor.

The said Time Lord coughed heavily and brushed rubble off his jacket. Everybody else was following suit.

"What," he said between coughs, "was…that?"

"That," said River, "was my upgrade."

"Your _upgrade_? What sort of upgrade?"

"My alpha meson blaster is now capable of firing microexplosives. I had these particular ones designed specially. They're nine millimetre microexplosives."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "That would explain the large explosion."

"Quite."

"So there we are, then."

"There we are."

"So."

Silence reigned for ten seconds, save for the alarm bell.

"What now?" asked Karen.

"We deal with our next problem," said River, looking at her tablet.

"Which is?" asked the Doctor.

"Police raid squad."

Sergeant Peter Watson was nervous. More nervous than he'd ever been in his entire career as leader of Romeo Sierra Niner. Usually, his job involved breaking down a front door, bursting in on a whole bunch of unsuspecting drug dealers, and getting the heck out again. However, this time they'd been informed that there were two massive explosions a few minutes ago, so that upped the antie a fair bit. He'd never fancied his death as being at the hands of a block of Semtex or C4, but you never knew with this job.

His team and he were riding the lift to the top floor, the one just before the roof. There were six members – himself, Wilkins, Jones, Smythe, Thompson and Higgins. Or, as they knew each other during an operation, Alphas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Wilkins and Thompson were ex Navy S.E., so this sort of thing was second nature to them. They were checking their CAR-15s for any blockages. Jones and Smythe had only just passed their training for Romeo Sierra operations, and therefore were only getting to grips with their MP5 submachine guns. Watson and Higgins were hardened veterans, having served in Iraq right up until the very last day, on the 30th April 2010. Higgins favoured a 12-gauge shotgun (for blasting locks to blithereens), and was adjusting the scope on it as the lift ascended.

The lift slowed as it reached the top floor. An unspoken thought went through every single man's mind – this is it. Watson chambered a 5.56x45mm NATO round in his G36 and pressed the power button on his reflex sight. To his right, he saw Smythe unclip a flashbang grenade from his belt and pull the pin.

The doors opened, and Smythe chucked the grenade. The lever pinged off somewhere to the right and the grenade itself rolled to a stop in the middle of the corridor.

All was silent.

Then it ignited. Watson's eyelids glowed bright red in the harsh light and he was glad to be wearing a noise-cancelling communicator headset.

As soon as the flash died down, he led the charge through the haze. He thrust his back against the wall and leant round. He fired two three-round bursts into the smoke as his team went round the corner. They began kicking down doors sequentially, then bursting in two at a time to sweep each office.

Shouts of "Clear!" echoed around the corridor, and eventually all the offices were designated clear. That just left the final corridor around the corner.

Watson pressed against the wall and signalled for the others to do the same. They maintained absolute silence, save for heavy breathing. He held up three fingers – three seconds. He counted in his head.

Then he broke cover, brought his rifle to his shoulder and brought it to bear down the corridor. The Doctor, Amy, Rory, River, Steven, Matt, Karen, Arthur and Alex were standing in a group.

"Targets identified!" he yelled. The rest of the squad lined up beside him. "Open fire!"

A concentrated hail of 5.56x45mm NATO and 9x19mm Parabellum bullets ripped through the smoke towards their target, tearing a hole in the wall behind. The floor quickly became littered with spent cartridges as they pinged off the walls and other team members.

Watson gave the cease-fire order and surveyed the corridor through the thin cordite haze. There were no corpses.

"Alpha One to Track One," he spoke into his radio mike. "The targets just…vanished, sir. We opened fire and they disappeared."

At the other end of the building, there was a shimmer of blue light, and the Doctor and crew materialised in a corridor. They groaned and clicked joints back into place.

"Remind me never…EVER…to use a vortex manipulator again," said the Doctor. He cricked his neck.

"And I thought it was only fiction that vortex manipulators were that bad," agreed Steven.

"That was a close call, you know, Doctor," said Alex. "Perhaps we need to rethink our strategy a little bit."

"Hey!" exclaimed the Doctor hotly. "It wasn't my fault! Blame your double!"

Matt's iPhone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. "Excuse me," he said. "It's my agent."

"Jonathan…well, could be worse, what about you…glad to hear it…oh, yes, I'd completely forgot, I'm sorry…thanks…OK, see you in ten." He hung up.

"What did Jonathan want?" asked Karen.

"We'd forgotten about the PR stunt at the front entrance," he replied.

Matt, Karen, Arthur, Alex and Steven all groaned in unison.

"I'm assuming that you don't like PR stunts, then?" asked the Doctor.

"It's not that," said Karen, "It's just that we're covered in rubble and dust and debris and whatnot, so we'll hardly make the best impression."

"Well, you've got two choices, then," said River. "Option one, you go and do the PR stunt. Option two…" She nodded at the vortex manipulator.

"Even the vortex manipulator can't compare to what Paul O'Grady will say if we appear like this," said Arthur, voicing everyone's opinion.

All hands went to the vortex manipulator, and they disappeared in the same way as they arrived.

They reappeared again just round the corner from the TARDIS with the same moaning and groaning as before. After another burst of insults hurled at the poor vortex manipulator, they navigated through the alleyways before reaching the TARDIS.

Upon reaching it, however, a sight met them that stopped them in their tracks.

"Oh no," Matt breathed. "Not that."

**Thanks for reading! Please review, as they make my day.**


	7. Chapter 7

**This is it, folks – what will this hideous apparition turn out to be? Well, it's...**

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Please no!" moaned Karen.

A cluster of girls of ages ranging from twelve to twenty had gathered around the TARDIS, chattering in excitement. One of them spied the group.

"There he is!" she squealed, her finger pointing to Matt.

Every single one of them screamed and started running towards them.

"Run!" yelled Matt, and they did.

All nine people departed from the scene as quickly as they possibly could, but numbers were against them, in that they couldn't run as fast down the alleyway as fast as they could have done on their own. Alex realised this fact.

"The real deal, go on ahead, along with Steven. The actors and actress, with me."

Alex, Arthur, Karen and Matt peeled off, disappearing down a side alley and pressing into the nearside wall. The fangirls sped past, one of them screaming, "I only want a photo!"

The stampede receded into the distance, and there was a collective sigh from everybody.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, Karen spoke up. "Don't you think we should help them?" she asked. "After all, they've saved our butts before in their world. It's the least we can do to keep them from being…" She trailed off.

"Eaten alive by rampaging fangirls?" finished Matt.

She nodded.

"Yeah, we probably should. But how? If we get seen together, there'll be an uproar."

Karen smirked. "I have an idea. You got Steven's mobile number?"

Alex handed her a mobile, and Karen scrolled down to find Steven's number. She pressed the green button and put the phone to her ear.

"Listen up," she said to the phone and her colleagues, "and I'll explain the plan."

"Got it," said Steven, and hung up. There was a light film of perspiration on his forehead from all the running. He wished now that he hadn't given the Doctor and Amy such exhausting episodes in their lives, now that he had to experience them himself. Why not invent a nice relaxed episode on a beach somewhere that there weren't any aliens, wars, plots, battles or bombs?

_Because our viewer ratings would drop even more,_ said a little voice in the back of his mind. _Make them suffer!_

Shoving the thought from his mind, he relayed the instructions to the Doctor, Amy, River and Rory. The Doctor threw his hands up into the air.

"Well if _that's_ our only salvation, then I might as well start the regeneration cycle now!"

"Don't talk rot, dear," said River. "They're only fangirls!"

"Fangirls and fan_boys_, I think you'll find," remarked Steven between pants. Sure enough, a few boys had joined the pack as well. What was amazing was that the fans were gaining steadily.

"We've got to give them time to set up, remember?" said Amy. "We can't give up now."

"Quite right too!" exclaimed the Doctor, and it gave them a new burst of speed.

They rounded several corners and there, in front of them, stood a youth club, and their salvation, for in front of it was a freestanding sign that read 'Doctor Who Free Autographs From The Cast'.

Without pausing for thought, they burst inside and vaulted over a couple of tables with promotional material strewn over them. They made a beeline for a door at the far end and let themselves outside once again. Behind them, the group of fans, now having swelled to roughly fifty, rushed inside as well.

"They're not here!" moaned one of the girls.

Then, they got the shock of their lives, for the door crashed shut behind them, and they heard a scraping sound. Every one of them started pounding on the door to be let out, but to no avail.

Outside, Arthur tied the final knot in the shoelace used to attach the sign to the door handle, stopping it from going down and so releasing the fans.

"There," he said, "Perfect."

Amy was the first round the corner, swiftly followed by the Doctor. They surveyed the locking mechanism.

"Isn't that illegal?" asked Amy.

"Probably," said Alex, "but if they complain and press charges at us, we'll press charges for harassment."

"Well, I suggest we leave before they pull out their mobiles and call the rozzers," said Rory.

"Yeah. Good idea," said the Doctor weakly, "If I can remember where we left the TARDIS."

After a long and gruelling search for the aforementioned elusive time capsule, all nine people eventually made it back to this time capsule. Locking the doors with a slight flourish, the Doctor made it clear to everybody that he was going to work on the control nodules and that he was not to be disturbed until tomorrow.

More specifically, he said, "I'm going to work on the control nodules, and I'm not to be disturbed until tomorrow. You got that?"

Everybody got that.

So, as a result, Arthur and Rory decided that enough was enough, and that they were going to get some rest. They therefore slunk off to their respective bedrooms and deadlocked shut the doors.

Steven took himself and the TARDIS manual to the library, and he also deadlocked shut the doors.

Alex and River, since they were the only duplicates who hadn't had a chance to chat, began chatting, and, much to her surprise, River was actually warming to her namesake.

Matt, to his delight, discovered that the TARDIS had a flight simulation suite buried deep in the catacombs of corridors, so was busying himself there pretending to fly the TARDIS.

That just left Amy and Karen, then.

Amy had excused herself about twenty minutes ago, and Karen had been waiting patiently since then, but now reckoned that something might be up. She went over to the TARDIS monitor.

"Um…hello?" she ventured.

A thought popped into her head. "Hello, Karen."

_Wow,_ thought Karen, _that's an eerie feeling._

Another thought appeared. "Don't worry, you get used to it eventually. Now, how can I help you?"

Shrugging the weird feelings aside, Karen proceeded to conduct the whole conversation in her head. "I was wondering where Amy is? Is she all right?"

"She's in her room," said the TARDIS, "and gave me explicit instructions not to allow _anyone_ to enter. And that means you as well, I'm afraid."

"You didn't answer the other question. Is she all right?"

There was only silence.

"Well?"

"No, not really," admitted the TARDIS. "She's…well, she's a bit…_disorientated_, I suppose you might describe it."

"Disorientated? How do you mean?"

"Well, I may be telepathic, but she's special. She's managed to block me out, which is an ability I have never seen outside of Time Lords. However, what I can tell you is how _I_ felt."

"Huh?" Karen was confused.

"How _I_ felt. You know, when I did the preliminary scans of the BBC building and found the other TARDIS."

"And how did you feel?"

"Do you really want to know?" asked the TARDIS.

"Yeah."

"It scared the zark out of me."

Karen laughed out loud, not just in her head. "Now _that's_ sad. Using a Douglas Adams swearword."

"It's Gallifreyan, originally," defended the TARDIS, "and I shouldn't really be using such coarse language. My data core heats up every time I say it."

In spite of the TARDIS's dire warnings, Karen knocked on Amy's door.

"Go away," came a muffled reply.

Karen entered anyway, and Amy was lying on her bed with her face buried in the pillow.

"I said, _go away_!" she screamed into the pillow.

"Amy, it's me, Karen," said Karen.

Amy half turned. "Yeah, I know, so go away!"

"What's wrong, Amy? This isn't you."

Amy sat up angrily. "How would you know? How the _heck_ would you know? You're just an _actress_ who's _paid_ to _act_ like _me_!" She spat out the last words with venom.

Karen could feel herself rising to the conflict. "Well, don't you think that, after nearly two years of studying scripts and acting like you, I mightn't have picked up a _tiny bit_ of your personality?"

"To be quite honest, no!"

That did it. "True, true, considering you don't _have_ a personality."

"Who do you think you are, my _mother_?"

The red mist fully engulfed Karen as she delivered the killer blow. "Maybe getting eaten by a crack in the wall was a mercy for the mother of a _stripper_!"

Amy screamed and launched herself across the bed at Karen, her hands closing around Karen's neck. They both fell to the ground and rolled around, each trying to gain the upper hand. Karen kneed Amy in the solar plexus, and the vice-like grip relaxed as Amy doubled over in pain.

Then, the final blow of the match came before anybody could work out what happened.

Amy's hand grasped the lampstand beside her bed and slammed it straight into Karen's temple. The actress crumpled to the ground. A trickle of blood seeped from her head and soaked into the carpet. She lay still.

**Please review to let me know what you think. Plus, don't worry about the attack – everything always turns out OK in the end in Doctor Who...doesn't it?**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I'm not sure if it's because I've stunned all my regulars into silence by the ending of chapter seven, but I've had little to no reviews about it. If you didn't like it, I'd prefer you'd have told me rather than keeping silent. But, anyhow, no hard feelings!**

CHAPTER EIGHT

Karen opened her eyes, and to her surprise, found herself lying on a towel on a beach in Florida. She looked down at herself, and saw that she was somehow in a brightly-coloured bikini and briefs.

_That's odd_, she thought, _I don't own a bikini _or_ briefs like that_.

She got up slowly and saw a man walking along the beach with an ice cream box slung in front of him around his neck.

"Would you like an ice cream," he asked, "or perhaps a nice cold drink?"

"Um, no thanks, I haven't any money," said Karen, slightly confused.

The man's face hardened, and he set the box down on the ground.

The box began to shake.

It shook harder.

And harder.

And harder.

Karen rubbed her eyes as it sort of unfolded, and then refolded into an all-too familiar shape.

A shape remarkably similar to a pepper pot with measles.

With an eyestalk.

A sink plunger.

And an egg whisk.

"Exterminate!" barked the Dalek.

Its gun swivelled, and fired.

Karen felt nothing. Then, the ground played a trick on her and yanked itself at a ninety degree angle to her body.

Everything went black.

Karen's vision returned slowly, bit by bit. It faded in and out of focus.

She could dimly make out faces peering over her.

She tried to speak. She tried to say, "What's going on?" but couldn't somehow seem to form the words.

One of the faces swum closer, and she saw it was either the Doctor or Matt. It was hard to tell.

"Karen?" he said. "Can you hear me? Wriggle your fingers if you can."

She focused her concentration fully upon that tiny act, and was delighted to feel her fingers brush against the bed.

Against the bed.

Bed.

"Why…am I…in…bed?" she managed to gasp out.

A different face replaced the first, and Karen for a moment thought she'd died and was now hovering above her own face.

But then she remembered it was Amy.

"Hi," Karen croaked.

"Hi," said Amy.

Neither of them spoke.

Then, "I'm sorry I…" they both said at the same time.

"You go first," said Amy.

"I'm…sorry I…said those things," said Karen. "It was…un-called for."

"And I'm sorry I was a narked, grumpy old cow earlier. You could hardly call your reaction unprovoked. And then for hitting you over the head with a lampstand."

"Even so…still shouldn't have retaliated…so still…sorry," stammered out Karen.

The Doctor put his hand on Karen's forehead. "Hush, now, just relax. You're in the TARDIS medical bay. I've put your body into an accelerated healing cycle. Amy gave you quite a thwack with that lampstand. Were you on Earth, you'd have probably been in theatre for…ooh, I dunno…five hours? You have a fractured _skull_."

Karen assimilated this information. Then, she felt herself laughing.

Amy looked confused. "Why are you…laughing?"

"It's funny, don't you think?" said Karen, still chuckling. "Being knocked out and nearly killed by my double!"

Amy felt highly embarrassed, so Arthur felt he had to step in.

"Now, Karen, doctor's orders, you rest."

Karen sat back and closed her eyes. She was asleep almost instantly.

The Doctor turned his back to Karen's bed and formed a barrier with his arms.

"Come on, everybody, let's leave her in peace. Let the medical software do its work."

"How long will it take?" asked Rory.

The Doctor looked at him. "You'll be bowled over by this, mate," he said.

Rory noticed that there was a rather complicated-looking control panel set into the wall with a lot of coloured buttons on it. The Time Lord stood in front of it and tapped a few buttons, then surveyed the group.

"You ready?"

He pressed a large green button right in the middle of the screen.

A blue bubble closed over the top of Karen's bed with a slight zap. Then, there came a blinding white flash from inside it, followed very swiftly by another and another, like a strobe light. The light strobed for five seconds, then stopped. The bubble opened once again.

Karen sat up groggily and looked about her. "Don't you lot _ever_ change your clothes?" she asked, her nose wrinkling up. "How long have I been in here?"

Everybody looked down at their feet and shifted from foot to foot.

"Well?" she demanded.

Alex cleared her throat. "Ur…well…um…a minute since we last spoke to you?"

Karen looked crestfallen. "You mean there wasn't a battle for my life and Matt didn't, at what he thought was my death, declare his undying love for me?"

Matt took a deep breath. "No. No, I didn't. Sorry to disappoint."

"Oh," said Karen weakly.

"So that's that, then," said Matt.

"That's that."

"So."

Another awkward silence ensued.

Broken by Karen's shocked face. "Get out, you lot! I'm still in my zarking nightie!"

Now it was the Doctor's turn to look shocked. "How do you know a High Gallifreyan swearword?" he said, looking thoroughly amazed.

"Ask the TARDIS," said Karen, then leapt off the bed. "I _was_ serious, you know. Leave. Now!"

Fifteen minutes later, Karen was up and at 'em once again, bouncing into the control room with her usual energy. If anything, she and Amy were better friends than ever! At least, Karen said nothing more about the issue, and Amy was obviously trying hard to make it up to her doppelganger, so clearly no animosity remained.

"Well, then. That was interesting," said the Doctor.

"Mmm…" was Amy's only comment.

"Right, anyway, we got close to finding the rift the last time before we found Dalek. I can only assume that it's the Daleks who have created this rift."

"But Doctor, couldn't–" said River before the Doctor cut her off.

"Shh, not now, brain thinking. We could obviously just repair the TARDIS and fly away again, but that vortex we fell through is my favourite. It's very direct to a lot of timestreams, so I don't really want to have to seal it off completely. So, we need to get rid of the rift."

"Was the rift actually _in_ Broadcasting House, or did you just pick up River's blaster and PDA?" asked Steven.

"Good point," acknowledged the Doctor. He turned to River. "Run a scan on the building for non-terrestrial technology."

River pulled the PDA out of her pocket and tapped the screen a couple of times. "Scan shows multiple counts of non-terrestrial technology plus alien lifeforms."

"So it wasn't just River, then, was it? OK. That helps a little."

"Well what are we waiting for?" asked Amy. "Come on!"

Within fifteen minutes, they were back in Broadcasting House. River had wanted to use the vortex manipulator, but, not wanting to simply say, "Because I don't like it," the Doctor had felt he needed a decent excuse as to why not. "Because the Daleks now know we're here, so they'll be on the lookout for any clever technology."

That meant the more traditional breaking and entering approach – or sonicking and entering as the Doctor still maintained, even after Rio de Cwmtaff.

And this placed our heroes on one side of a door that, on the other side (according to both the sonic screwdriver and River's PDA), were humongous quantities of non-terrestrial technology.

"You ready for this?" asked the Doctor.

"Always," said River.

He used the sonic on the lock and kicked the door open. Inside, they saw…

To Be Continued

**Please review, and apologies once again if I overdid it last chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: First of all, thanks to everyone who's been reviewing. Your reviews mean a lot. Secondly, I would like to extend special thanks to MuseDePandora, who kindly allowed me to use the plotline linking Jack and River from her story.**

CHAPTER NINE

"Oh, not again!" groaned the Doctor. "You're an intelligent man, Jack. One of the agency's finest. Until you left. So I'd have thought that you of all people would have worked out that the poor fellow you're pinning to the ground with a revolver pressed to his brain stem isn't a clone or an android."

Jack stood up and pulled the other man to his feet. He straightened the coat on his doppelganger and brushed some dust off the lapels.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I'll make it up to you somehow. Is there a decent bar around here?"

"Wow. You really are just like Steven makes you out," said John Barrowman.

"Steven?" Jack looked confused.

The Doctor clapped a hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'll explain later," he said.

"Why are there…two of you? Two of everyone, in fact," added Jack, raising his eyebrows. "Plus, you have to answer me this. Who's the redhead?"

"Oh, that's Amy. _Mrs_ Amy Pond. In other words, she's taken, Jack, so stop hoping."

"And you know fine well, Captain Jack Harkness, that you have about as much chance with me as you would to be able to rub two brain cells together," said River as she stepped into view.

Jack sprung to attention and saluted. "Ma'am," he said, his Peninsula accent ringing out more than ever.

"Better," nodded River.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was highly confused. "Sorry, but you two _know_ each other?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," admitted River.

"Just to clarify – is that the same manner of speaking by which you were engaged to Father Octavian?" prompted the Time Lord.

"Yes. He was my interrogator," stated River simply.

The Doctor obviously wasn't expecting this. "Oh. I see. Was this to do with the murder?"

"Yes, it was, actually. The person she murdered was…" He trailed off upon receipt of a withering look from River Song.

"Spoilers," she intoned darkly.

"Oh, come on, River, at least grant me this one thing," pleaded the Doctor.

"If I told you, Doctor," she half-whispered, "it would break your hearts."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Oh," offered the Doctor weakly. "I see."

Jack understood the need for a swift change in topic. "So what were you boys and girls doin' when you bumped into me?" he asked.

The Doctor grasped gratefully at the chance. "Right, yes, thank you, got a little sidetracked there. We were looking for an artificially-created rift in the Time Vortex, but first, how did _you_ get here?"

"I fell through your rift when doing a short hop into the future," explained the Captain.

"You weren't, by any chance, travelling through vortex seven-six-two-four-dash-alpha-gamma-dash-two-seven, were you?"

"I was, actually, yeah. I expect you were as well, then?"

"Yes, which means we've just found our common denominator. At least, it will be once I hear how River got here."

"Same thing, same vortex. It's our common denominator, all right," confirmed River.

"So, you're looking for this rift thing, then, yeah? What would cause something like that?" asked Jack.

"Well, something big, anyway. Um…" The Doctor scratched his head. "It would need a colossal amount of power, so you'd be looking at a small nuclear reactor all to itself. That would generate a lot of heat, so the whole outside is usually painted black to stop heat radiating out from the casing. Then, you have the energy refractor, plus a small time window, so you're looking at a large satellite dish type affair with a small time window placed at the focus point."

Jack nervously cleared his throat. "Large, black satellite dish with a time window, you said?"

"Yes, that's right, why?" asked the Doctor.

"Because I know where it is."

It wasn't until they were walking down the corridor under Jack's guidance that the Doctor thought to ask the obvious question.

"_How_ do you know where it is?" he asked.

"Well, after exterminating me, I sort of followed the Daleks back to their lair. They're hiding in a prop room."

"Wait a minute," said Amy, "but weren't we just _in_ the prop room?"

"Not _the_ prop room. _A_ plot room. There's quite a few across the building," explained Steven.

"So, anyway, there was a machine just like you described, with-"

Jack's sentence was cut short when he vanished from view at the touch of a Weeping Angel.

"Jack!" yelled the Doctor and John together, but it was no use.

"Quickly, look at them, look at them!" screamed Amy.

Every person fixed their eyes upon a Weeping Angel. There were five in all, obviously moving up the corridor until being turned into stone by the gaze of another lifeform.

"Where's Jack?" asked Karen.

"Gone. Transported to another time zone," said the Doctor. "The methods of killing you saw at the Byzantium were atypical. Usually, they touch you and send you back X years, letting you live the rest of your life in that time zone, then feeding off the potential energy. The what-ifs, the could-have-beens. The wasn'ts."

"So Jack's stuck somewhere?" said River.

"Yes. We'll never see him again, now."

Suddenly, there came a zap, and Jack shimmered into view, soaking wet.

"I _hate_ it when that happens!" he shouted. "I mean, show some respect, fellas! You could have at least let me finish my sentence!"

The Doctor was highly confused for the second time in five minutes. "How did you…I mean…you just went back in time, right?"

"Yeah. They sent me back to the nineteen thirties. In the middle of the pouring rain."

"But how did you get back?" the Doctor finally spluttered out.

"Vortex manipulator, remember?"

"Ah."

Jack turned round, and froze as one of the angels was pointing at the fluorescent fittings.

"It's gonna turn out the lights!" he yelled.

As if on cue, the corridor was plunged into darkness, and every member of the group heard Jack's curse just before he was sent back in time again.

The light returned, as did Jack, although this time holding a cocktail glass.

"That was marginally better this time," he said. "I ended up in Hawaii in the fifties. Turns out there was a party. I just borrowed this little bit of refreshment."

Once again, the corridor got plunged into darkness, and once again Jack returned, thoroughly annoyed.

"Look, would you mind-"

Darkness.

"I'd really prefer it if-"

Darkness.

"Fellas, just-"

Darkness.

"STOP IT!" he shouted.

Darkness. Only silence.

"Hmm," said Jack, "I wonder why they haven't-"

Zap.

"Spoke too soon, I guess."

The angels had gone.

"Where did they go?" asked Amy.

The Doctor chose to ignore the question for the moment. "This has suddenly got a whole lot more dangerous. So dangerous that I think the actors have to leave now."

There was a general cry of dismay from all the affected parties. "But Doctor, you need all the help you can get!" protested Matt. "What if you need numbers?"

"Matt, if the situation is so bad that it matters how many of us there are, then we're dead anyway," said the Doctor. "My decision still stands – go home. It's no longer in any way safe."

Karen pushed her way to the front of the pack so she was standing right in front of the Doctor. "So tell me, Doctor, what's the difference between Amy getting exterminated or zapped back in time, and me?"

The Doctor shifted from foot to foot. "Well, um…ur…"

"Exactly," said Karen, looking triumphant.

"No, it's still important that you don't die! If you get exterminated, then what'll happen to Doctor Who?"

"Who cares about Doctor Who when you get to fight alongside the real deal?" said Alex.

"I don't care!" snapped the Doctor. "If you die, I'll never forgive myself for letting you." His tones softened. "Please, for my sake, just go home."

Utterly downcast, the actors turned and exited the way they had come in. They walked down the corridor without uttering a sound.

Rounding the corner, however, changed that completely.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and his real companions were moving in the opposite direction, following Jack as he led the way to another prop room.

"So how many regenerations has it been since we met on Utopia?" Jack asked.

"Only the one, actually. And you'll never guess who caused it."

"Who?"

"The Master."

Jack stopped short. "You're not serious?"

"Fraid so."

"But he died, didn't he? You lit the funeral pyre!"

"Yeah, long story short, he rose from the dead."

Jack half-laughed. "You Time Lords are far too much, you know. What next – growing another hand? Oh, wait – you did."

Amy interjected at this point. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down a minute. Regenerations? Utopia? The Master? Growing another hand? W_aaaaaaaaaaaaa_y too many weird things at once. Start from the beginning."

Before the Doctor could answer, they heard a bloodcurdling scream echo down the corridor.

"That sounded like…" said River.

"Karen!" finished Rory, and led the charge back down the corridor.

**TBC – what has caused Karen to scream? Is it some hideous monster waiting to devour them, or something else? Please review and tell me what you think.**


	10. HELP!

OK, the first thing you'll have noticed is that this 'chapter' is very short. That's because it's not a chapter – it's a communiqué between you and me.

I have been in the States for the past two weeks with only my iPad, and since you can't upload chapters from the iPad, there haven't been any updates. However, the reason you aren't getting an update the moment I've arrived home is because I haven't decided yet what made Karen scream.

This is where you, my readers, come in. I would like you to think of suggestions as to what is around the corner (or what might have happened) and send them to me by means of a review of this chapter. If you have already suggested something, I would really appreciate it if you would suggest it again as I have outlined above because it makes it easier for me to leaf through the ideas. The best idea will be included in the next chapter and your name will be in lights! Or, rather, bold at the top of the chapter.

So, sorry for no update, and I expect to have loads of ideas flooding in soon.

**ZackAttack96**


	11. Chapter 11

**OK, I know we haven't **_**had**_** a chapter ten, but simply so that 'chapter 11' isn't **_**my**_** Chapter 10, I'm just going to skip chapter 10 and designate this one as chapter 11.**

**So, then, thanks for your suggestions – I got about 10-15 of them, which is really good! And now it's the moment you've all been waiting for. *****drumroll***** The winner…of the best suggestion competition...*theatrically produces golden envelope*…is…Kelly of the midnight dawn! *****rapturous applause*******

**Hope you enjoy, and sorry for another abhorrently long delay.**

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_Before the Doctor could answer, they heard a bloodcurdling scream echo down the corridor._

"_That sounded like…" said River._

"_Karen!" finished Rory, and led the charge back down the corridor._

Rory turned the corner, and his mouth dropped. The first person he saw was Steven leaning against the wall, looking completely dejected. The next person he saw was Alex with her hand to her mouth, eyes wide open in horror.

He looked down, and kneeling on the ground was Karen, the limp form of Matt cradled in her arms. She was quietly sobbing.

"No…" uttered Rory weakly.

Everyone else filed in behind him. Amy felt a lump rising in her throat.

"What happened?" she finally managed to choke out.

Steven, being the most composed of them all, told the tale.

_They rounded the corner, and suddenly, a bright blue flash burst from the air a few metres away, and a short, stumpy humanoid form shimmered into view. This new __creature had an appearance remarkably akin to that of a baked potato, and carried an MP5-sized gun that, even now, was glowing red through some vents at the side._

"_A Sontaran!" exclaimed Alex, remembering from Series 4._

_With lips curled up into a grin, the Sontaran fired. The red laser bolt fizzed through the air, striking Matt full-on in the chest. Karen screamed as Matt stumbled backwards a step, then crumpled into her arms. Behind the Sontaran, another humanoid form shimmered into view and fired a Glock 17 thrice, drilling three nine-millimetre bullets through the Sontaran's head at one thousand, two hundred and thirty feet per second._

"And then you came," finished Steven.

The Doctor was lost for words.

At least, not for long.

"This isn't fair, you know!" he complained at the author. "I've never been lost for words in my life, and now, suddenly, when it matters, I am!"

"Why are you complaining?" the author reasoned with him. "It makes us feel that you're still normalish without showing you up too much."

"But I still think…" said the Time Lord before the author decided to take action. The author made the Doctor start walking, then turn very abruptly and walk straight into the wall. Ha! That got him!

Fuming, the Doctor accepted his speechless fate and returned to the action.

He looked down and saw the Sontaran lying prostrate on the ground, his energy weapon still humming. With a quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver, the weapon was rendered inactive.

Karen was still crying silently. She turned her tear-streaked face to the Doctor with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"You can treat him, yeah? Like you did with me? You can put him in that bubbly thing, right? And then it'll all be better?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it won't work. The…bubbly thing, as you call it, works by extrapolating existing life force and using it to repair the body. You still had a fair bit of life force left, but Matt doesn't. So, the machine can't cure him."

Karen was swamped by a whole new wave of grief. Completely unsure as to what you do when confronted by a weeping woman, the Doctor averted his eyes upwards.

And his gaze fell upon yet another face.

One that he hadn't seen for a long time.

"No…" he breathed.

"Hello, Doctor," said Rose. She cleared the chamber in her Glock 17 and slipped it into her back waistband. "It's been a long time."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it has," said the Time Lord.

"Who's your latest companion?"

The Doctor motioned to the redhead who wasn't yet weeping. "That's her, there. Amelia Pond. Although she only likes to be called Amy, otherwise she thumps you one."

There came a sharp intake of breath from the floor, as Karen's mouth dropped open in disbelief.

Matt stirred, and sat up groggily. The Doctor was instantly at his side, putting Matt's left arm over the Time Lord's shoulder.

"Take it easy, Matt," said the Doctor. "Whatever miracle has kept you alive hasn't stopped you from being winded, so just get your breath back." Then, "What was it that saved your life anyway?"

"Hip…flask…" said Matt, catching his breath. "I always…keep one in…my inside…jacket pocket. It didn't half hurt, though. Good grief!"

Jack piped up. "So the moral of that story, kids, is pinch your daddy's hip flask before picking a fight with a Sontaran!"

Everybody in the group duly groaned, and Matt (with the Doctor's assistance) got back to his feet. A round of applause washed over him, and he grinned.

"Thanks," was all he could think of saying.

"Now, you lot, back to the TARDIS before anything else bad happens!" said the Doctor.

Rose interjected at this point. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked. "Because from where I'm standing, that was how you landed them lot into this mess in the first place."

Cries of "Hear, hear" and "Quite right" accompanied her statement, and the Doctor raised his hands in acknowledgement.

"Yes, yes, I know, I know, but this time I'm going to escort you myself!" assured the Doctor.

The actors and actresses didn't feel so assured. "That's really helping, Doctor," said Arthur.

"Right, okay, okay, you can stay! Just…stick together, all right?"

An audible sigh of relief escaped the lips of all surrounding him. Then, he had a thought.

"Who played Rose in Doctor Who?" he asked.

Steven cleared his throat. "Billie Piper," he said.

"Right," said the Time Lord. "Because she's standing over there looking highly confused."

The whole group turned in unison to face the other young blonde at the other end of the corridor.

"Um…hello?" she said tentatively. "Why are there…two of all of you?"

Captain Jack draped an arm round her shoulders. "Long story. Have you got time?"

"Well, I've nothing else to do. Filming's done for the day."

The Doctor cleared his throat loudly. "Ahem, well, if we're all ready, we have a task in hand, don't we?"

Relieved that he'd forgotten about sending the actors and actresses back to the TARDIS, Alex nodded. "Finding where the Daleks were holed up."

The Doctor turned to Rose. "Did you spot any Daleks since you arrived?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't. Why, are they here?"

"Yes, and Weeping Angels, too, I might add," said the Time Lord.

Rose's brow furrowed. "Weeping Angels?"

"Ah, yes, of course, you haven't met them yet. Sorry."

He nodded to Jack, who, after making a big show of punching some buttons on his vortex manipulator, continued down the corridor.

* * *

Four floors, ten corridors and a lift later, they arrived at the auxiliary prop room. The Doctor motioned for the group to press against the walls either side of the door. River, Rose and Jack pulled out their guns and readied them in a variety of fashions, and the Doctor primed his sonic screwdriver.

He held the tip against the lock.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Ready."

"Ready."

He looked to the rest. "Ready?"

"Ready."

He pressed the switch.

The tip glowed green against the lock, then, with a click, it opened.

Jack transferred his weight to his left foot and applied a bit of brute force and ignorance just to the right of the door handle. The door crashed open and the four armed 'commandos' (as Jack would describe them later) swarmed into the room.

The Doctor stopped short. "Oh, that's cheating."

In front of him were _two_ Weeping Angels.

"Which one's the real one?" asked Jack, "Or are they both real? Or neither?"

River tapped a few buttons on her PDA. "One of them's definitely real, all right, but my sensors aren't accurate enough to tell which one."

"So which one do we look at?" asked Rose.

"That's a very good question," said the Doctor, "One that I haven't yet worked out how to answer."

"Can you shoot a real Weeping Angel?" asked Jack.

"You _can_, but it won't be effective."

"Right, then," said River. "Stand back."

She unslung the backpack she'd been carrying all this time – nobody had taken it upon themselves to let _me_, the author, know – and removed from it a black plastic box about three foot by one foot in size. On the top of it was emblazoned in gold lettering 'STPR-MKII'.

Jack looked on in awe. "Is that what I _think_ it is?" he asked, "A Sirius Tactical Plasma Rifle Mark Two?"

"Got it in one," said River, flipping up the catches and lifting the lid. Inside was a sleek silver rifle that was partly disassembled for the field, a box magazine with a glowing blue line up the side, and a tactical quick-release reflex scope.

With practiced ease, River, removed the main body of the rifle, fitted the barrel to the front and the stock to the back, clipped on the scope and shunted in the box magazine. She pulled the cocking lever and the weapon powered up, a blue glow appearing from a line down either side of the rifle body.

"You might want to think about retreating to a safe distance," said River. "Or not, as the case may be."

She selected fully automatic fire and shouldered the rifle. The scope flickered into life due to a pressure sensor in the butt pad, quickly identified the target and locked on.

River squeezed the trigger.

A hail of blue plasma bolts spurted from the muzzle of the rifle and crackled through the air towards their target. In the bat of an eyelid, the unfortunate Weeping Angel was cut to ribbons, pieces of papier-mâché dangling from the internal structure.

The Doctor opened his mouth, closed it again, and then opened it once again. "Well that wasn't the real one, anyway," he said weakly, not knowing what else to say.

"Number Two, then," said River, before repeating the process. This time, the Angel stood firm, the plasma merely mildly scorching the outside.

"That must be one way of differentiating between a fake Angel and a real one," remarked Rose as she watched River sling the rifle over her shoulder.

"And a pretty spectacular one at that," agreed Jack, suddenly feeling wholly inadequate with his old World War Two revolver.

"So what are we going to do about it, then?" prompted Karen. "If we don't concentrate, we'll _all_ get sent back to goodness knows where!"

"Good point, actually," said the Doctor, turning to face them all.

The whole group looked at him.

Then they realised what they'd done.

Because they found themselves in a lush green meadow in the open countryside.

**Please review, everybody. By the way, it may be quite possibly just as long until the next update, too (stupid revision) so please don't expect an instant update.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I really don't know how to apologise enough for the absurdly long time you all had to wait for this update. It's ridiculous how long it took to get this up. But I beg of you, blame revision and exams, not me. If you're going to put anybody in your bad books, make it the UK exams boards!**

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Doctor twisted his wrist round to look at his watch. "We're in the year…1972," he said, then added "AD" in case anybody suspected otherwise.

Jack proffered his vortex manipulator. "Surely we can simply jump back with our vortex manipulators?" he said.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, 'fraid not. There's too many of us now."

"But a single one managed to get you, me and Martha back from the year one hundred trillion before without any problems whatsoever!" Jack argued. "Surely if we've got three we can somehow manage it?"

The head shook once again. "Still too many. We were on a parallel timeline then that was a heck of a lot easier to get through. These things would short out with the load."

Everyone looked dejected, resigning themselves to a pretty long wait. Then, Matt had a brainwave.

"I'm not sure if it's possible or not," he said, "not really knowing a whole lot about time travel. But isn't the fundamental problem that each vortex manipulator individually couldn't stick taking so many people?"

"That's pretty much it," confirmed Jack.

"Then why not wire the three up together and only make three trips? There, back and there again? You could take half of us at once."

The Doctor smacked his forehead in frustration. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Good work, Matt!" Then, he grinned. "You're a lot more like me than I thought you were."

Rose cleared her throat. "Um…sorry to rain on your parade, but where are we going to get the equipment we need to do that from?"

Her only reply was a flicker of a grin from the Doctor. "We're going to visit an old friend."

At UNIT headquarters, Jo Grant arrived in front of the spot where the TARDIS was parked and banged on the door. She fought to catch her breath before the Doctor answered.

"Yes, Jo, what is it?" he asked, slightly indignantly.

Swallowing the urge to pant, Jo replied, "Somebody here to see you, Doctor."

"Well, who is it?" the Time Lord asked. "Come on, Jo, spit it out."

"He _says_…well, he says he's a relative, but he won't say which one."

Heaving a great, exaggerated sigh, the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and pulled the door to. "I suppose I'm obliged to go and see who it is," he said.

Jo looked excited. "Is he another Time Lord, then?" she asked. The Doctor nodded.

"If he is who he says he is, then by definition he must be," he said with a slight patronising tone. Jo detected this but decided to ignore it.

As they left UNIT headquarters, the Doctor noticed a man hovering in the middle of the drive wearing a sports jacket and flannels. "Is that him?" asked the Time Lord.

"Yes, that's him," confirmed Jo. The Doctor let out a chuckle. "I've never met this man before in my life," he muttered to his companion as he approached the newcomer.

"Can I help you?" said the Doctor, smiling as pleasantly as he could in spite of the interruption to his work.

The man turned, and from that moment on, the Doctor knew instantly from his eyes that this man was a Time Lord.

"Ah, Doctor," said the man, grasping the older man's hand firmly as he shook it. "I need you to do me a favour."

The Doctor smiled once more. "And what might that be?" he asked.

"I need to borrow some components from your TARDIS," said the man.

Looking to Jo in exasperation, the Doctor's smile faded. "I'm sorry, but I don't even know who you are. You're a Time Lord, I can tell that, but which one, if you don't mind my asking?"

This seemed to throw the man, and he looked around him, as if searching for a way to deliver this piece of information. "I'm…you," he said finally. The Doctor's eyebrow furrowed.

"I don't think so," he said. "There's only one of me."

"Thank goodness," muttered Jo under her breath. The Doctor arched his eyebrows at her, but said nothing.

"That's the point," continued the man. "I'm a later regeneration of you. Number eleven, to be precise."

"Now _listen_ to me!" cried the Doctor, "This is preposterous! The only way I could believe you were me is if…" He trailed off.

"…I told you your name," finished the man. Leaning in close, the man in the sports jacket whispered the single word in the Universe that the Doctor least expected to hear.

His name.

Jo noticed the Doctor visibly reel back in shock. She had never once in her life seen this happen, and had (from past experience) never expected to, either.

"So…you're the Doctor too?" she asked the man in the sport jacket, now identified as the same man still struggling to come to terms with it all.

"Yep," said the younger-looking Doctor.

"I don't understand," complained Jo. "How can _you_ be _him_?"

"I'll explain later," said the older-looking Doctor.

Just then, the rest of the Doctor's troupe came round the corner of the building and made their way over to the others, two of whom were now extremely confused.

"Why are there two of you all?" asked the older-looking Doctor. "Are they clones or something?"

"Slightly more complicated than clones," said the younger-looking Doctor.

"Androids?"

"More complicated than that."

"Parallel versions?"

"Getting warmer. They're actors."

"Actors? You mean fans?"

"No." The younger-looking Doctor placed a hand on the older man's shoulder. "You…I mean _we_…are a television program in another reality."

The older-looking Doctor's eyes widened. "Impossible!" he breathed.

"But true," said Matt.

"Who's this, Doctor?" asked Amy.

Both Doctors turned to look at her. Her eyes widened too. "Oh. I see."

"That's nearly as confusing as with the Flesh," remarked Rory. "Only you looked identical then."

"Are there any distinguishing features between you two?" asked Karen.

Both Doctors thought for a moment. Then, they both came to the same conclusion at once.

"Our regenerations!" they exclaimed.

"How about you call me Doctor Eleven and you call him Doctor Three?" suggested the eleventh Doctor. Karen shook her head.

"No, it's too Alex Rider," she said. "Perhaps just Eleven and Three?"

"That makes us sound like prisoners!" exclaimed the third Doctor.

"Take it or leave it," came the grim reply.

The third Doctor looked quite shocked at being spoken to like that, but he recovered sufficiently to say tersely, "All right. Eleven and three it is."

Eleven took charge. "Right, as I was saying to myself…no, that's not going to work. As I was saying to _Three_, heh heh…" He chuckled. "We're going to borrow some components from his TARDIS to make the time jump work."

"Question!" said Jack, putting up his hand a bit, then lowering it, embarrassed. "Um…if we were in an alternate reality where the real us didn't exist, then how come we're now speaking to the real third regeneration of the Doctor?"

"That's a very good point!" said Amy. "Does that mean we're back in our reality now?"

"Yes, we are," said the Eleven matter-of-factly.

Jack gave a whoop. "We did it!" he yelled.

"Not so fast, Jack," said Eleven. "Think about it. If we're back…"

"…then the others aren't," finished Jack, deflated.

"Precisely," said Eleven.

"So what components did you say you need?" asked Three.

Eleven brightened up again. "Ah, yes, that's right. I wrote a list…"

At this he dug around in his pockets for some length before at last withdrawing a crumpled sheet of paper.

"This is it!" he said. He handed it to Three.

The older-looking man glanced over the list. Then he shook his head. "I don't have a single one of these parts," he said.

**Please R&R you guys! I know I don't deserve it, but it would really cheer me up tonight…**


	13. Chapter 13

**I don't know what to say. I really, truly, am sorry about the slowness of updating. It's been at least a month, I think. So many apologies, and I hope this chapter has been worth the wait.**

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"No…" said Karen weakly, and slumped against the wall in despair. Matt, Alex, John, Billie, Steven and Arthur joined her.

"Don't get all down in the dumps, though," said Three. "I have another idea." He smiled.

"I'll give you a lift!"

"Wait a second," said Eleven. "Haven't the Time Lords changed the dematerialisation sequence on you?"

"Yes, but now you're here, you can tell me what they changed it to," said Three hopefully.

"Are you sure about that?" said Eleven tentatively. "Isn't this interfering with past events too much?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," said Three grandly, "and you know as well as I do that, given the amount we've interfered already, a little more won't hurt."

"True, true…" Eleven mused. "All right, I see what you mean. We can only give it a try."

Three led the way through UNIT headquarters to his private office. He opened the doors to the TARDIS and the whole group stepped inside.

Eleven grinned like a seven-year-old who just found a thousand pounds stashed under his bed. "I'd forgotten how amazing you looked then, old girl!" he said, stroking the console in his delight.

Three cleared his throat. "Ahem, you were going to tell me the dematerialisation sequence, weren't you?" he said.

Startled, Eleven tried a little too had to act naturally. "Ah, yes, that's right. I most _definitely_ didn't just get lost in my reverie of how…sexy the TARDIS…um…anyway, I'm going to have to ask you to look away, Doctor. So you don't actually know the dematerialisation sequence."

Three nodded his consent and turned to face the wall. Eleven scratched his head and mumbled to himself.

"As far as I remember, it's always been the same since then, so, let me see…"

Eleven flipped the door lock switch and pulled the dematerialisation lever. Having left the brakes on as usual, the TARDIS engines laboured under their usual groan. He quickly activated the atom accelerator and engaged the gear mechanism, throwing everybody to the floor with the jolt. The TARDIS hurtled through the time vortex, spinning this way and that. Eleven then activated the inertial dampers, thinking they'd had enough fun for one trip. Giving himself three years' braking distance, he then flung the TARDIS into reverse and brought her to a time and spatial standstill. He pulled the materialisation lever and the TARDIS faded into existence once again.

Three lifted his head tentatively. "Is she landed?" he asked.

Eleven nodded, a big grin plastered all over his face. "Yep! What did you think of that?"

"That…was the most horrible experience…I've ever had."

"Oh." Eleven sounded deflated.

Amy unlocked the doors and flung them open. They'd parked right next to their current TARDIS.

"Please tell me they're not touching," said Eleven.

Amy shook her head.

"Praise God for that," breathed Three. "In the strictly Biblical sense, of course," he added quickly.

"You're a better pilot than I thought!" exclaimed River.

Eleven straightened his jacket proudly. "Well, I mean, it was nothing," he said, feigning modesty rather unsuccessfully.

"Well aren't you going to let us in? Don't you know it's rude to keep ladies waiting?" said Billie, tongue in cheek.

Eleven laughed and snapped his fingers. The doors to his TARDIS swung upon, and the doors to Three's TARDIS clapped shut, propelling Three swiftly from the threshold.

"What the blazes…" he muttered.

Eleven sighed and clicked his fingers again, swopping which TARDIS was open. He pushed his younger self into the TARDIS and directed him to one of the chairs.

"Now I'm going to have to send you back where you came from without letting you know the dematerialisation sequence," explained Eleven whilst he fiddled with the settings on the sonic screwdriver.

"How do you propose to do that?" asked Three.

"With the sonic screwdriver."

"But that's impossible!" cried Three. "The TARDIS is shielded against such remote piloting!"

"Not from a screwdriver containing a part of that TARDIS," said Eleven as he flipped the switch on the screwdriver and shoved the head home.

The doors to the TARDIS swung shut once again and the time rotor began heaving up and down. Three fell to the ground for the second time in two minutes, tried to stand up, then got flung to the floor again as the TARDIS ground to a halt. The doors opened and Jo stuck her head tentatively through them, then rushed over to the man and helped him to his feet.

"Are you all right, Doctor?" she asked.

"Physically, I'm unharmed," he said. "But mentally…confused, I should think."

Meanwhile, everybody else had collapsed with relief onto the sofas in the library.

"So why didn't the third Doctor's TARDIS break down with falling through the rift an' all?" asked Jack.

The Doctor sniffed. "Older technology, I guess. More stable a platform. Never use beta releases. Never."

Amy pouted. "I wanted to have a look around nineteen seventy-two," she said.

He laughed. "Nothing interesting to see in nineteen seventy-two. I got rid of all the interesting stuff."

"But we would have liked to look around!" argued Karen, standing next to her doppelganger.

"Well who's going to get you there and show you around?" asked the Doctor.

Jack stepped forward. "Me. I've a manipulator. Since you fixed it, it no longer shorts out after repeated trips."

The Doctor was trapped. If he said no, it was obvious he didn't trust Jack. If he said yes, then he must be crazy. No – he wouldn't stoop to their level.

"Yeah, all right, go on. I've still the repair work to do anyway."

Karen and Amy high-fived each other, and everybody else just grinned.

Jack dialled up some buttons on his manipulator. "All right, boys and girls, two at a time!"

First the Amys, then the Rivers, then the Rorys, and then finally the Roses were zapped back in time.

"Don't you want to go, Steven?" asked the Doctor.

"Nah. I want a go in the flight simulator," came the reply.

They decided to split up and search around the place as they chose. Everybody ran off in different directions.

Karen wandered down the street, marvelling at how anyone could possibly get used to this. Being in a different place and different time with just a snap of your fingers.

She strolled along merrily, taking in the sights and smells of 1972. Apart from the cleaner air and older cars, Karen didn't notice much different.

"Psst!"

Karen stopped and looked around her.

"Psst! Karen! In here!"

She looked to her left, and crouching in an alleyway was Matt, beckoning to her. Karen, confused, followed him in.

"Come and see this!" he whispered, and pulled her after him deeper into the alleyway.

They rounded the corner, and then Karen got the second biggest shock of her life.

The biggest shock of her life had been when she broke up with Patrick Green.

The second biggest shock of her life was when Matt slammed her into the wall and kissed her roughly.

The snog lasted for about five seconds before Karen regained her senses and propelled Matt away from her into the opposite wall.

"What the heck was that?" she demanded. A smell that she'd detected on Matt's breath suddenly rang a bell in the back of her mind as 'gin'.

"I love you Karen," Matt slurred whilst grinning groggily. "I want to be with you forever and ever."

"Yeah, well, kissing me in an alleyway without my consent isn't the best way to go about that, y'know?" she retorted.

"You're so sexy when you're angry," Matt intoned before kissing her again.

It took slightly less time for Karen to react, but this time she reacted with more force. She slapped Matt across the face and stormed off back down the alleyway.

"You really have no sense of tact or romance, Matt," she said. "Get a life."

He grabbed her wrist and spun her round to face him once more. "You told me you loved me before, Karen," he said. "I need you to show me that you do."

"Well think again," came the stony reply.

Matt held her by the waist and looked into her eyes. "Please, Karen. I love you. I want us to be together forever and ever."

Karen could feel her resolve weakening, so she knew she didn't have long to end it.

"Matt, you're drunk. Now is not the time to discuss relationships!"

And with that, Karen twisted out of his grip and ran pell-mell out of the alleyway.

Back in the present day, the Doctor was optimistic, and bubbled his way down the corridor. He passed Steven, who was going the other way.

"Why so cheerful?" he asked.

The Time Lord held up a plastic bag with glee. "I've fixed the nodes!" he said with a childish voice.

Steven's face fell.

"What's wrong?" asked the Doctor.

"It's just that…nah, never mind."

"No, come on, spit it out!"

Steven sighed. "It's just that, now the TARDIS is fixed, there's no reason for you to stay."

The Doctor paused and looked at Steven. "There is, actually."

Steven's face lit up. "Why?"

"I've still to get rid of the Daleks and the rift, remember?"

"Oh, yeah! That's right!" Steven whistled his way back down the corridor, and the Doctor entered the control room. He struggled into the sling harness and slung himself underneath the control room floor.

Easing his way along to the central support, he slipped the node module out of the bag and untangled all the wires. Then, he reached into a pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He buzzed it against the screws and watched them work themselves loose into his outstretched hand. He then removed the panel and opened up the access hatch inside.

"Easy does it now," he murmured to himself.

As if on cue, the node twisted itself from his grasp and flung itself at the floor.

"Zark!" he yelled, and made a grab for it.

Mercifully, he felt his fingers close around rubber wire insulation.

"Phew," he said. "_That_ was too close."

Fingers shaking, he placed the node in its socket and used the screwdriver to solder the connections. Then, he swung himself upright and leapt to the floor.

Once he got to the console, he took a deep breath. "Moment of truth…"

He activated the power cells and winced in anticipation of the explosion he thought inevitable.

But it didn't come. Instead, the TARDIS powered up and performed a system check.

A huge grin broke the Doctor's face, and he laughed. He pulled over the monitor.

Its message was simple:

ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE

**Please review in spite of my lack of update speed.**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Sorry for the delay once again. Now our new kitchen has been installed, I've a little more time for things like writing. Hope you enjoy!**

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"YES!" exclaimed the Doctor, and leapt into the air as he punched it. He then went over to the keyboard and pulled the monitor after him. He pressed the destination entry key.

% destinput: state destination planet

He typed:

% destplanet: "Earth"

The TARDIS and he then alternated code entry:

% destinput: destplanet confirmed. State destination date

% destdate year = 1972AD; month -greg = April; day = 18; time = 1945hrs

% destinput: destdate confirmed. State spatial entry point.

% spatpoint = "Westminster Embankment"

% destinput: spatpoint confirmed. Begin dematerialisation sequence.

With another huge grin, the Doctor engaged the gear mechanism.

Matt stirred from his slumber and groaned. Hangovers really sucked. He rolled out of his bed in the guesthouse they were staying in and looked at his watch. Half past seven.

He groaned again as the memory of yesterday hit him. What a dolt he'd been!

The question was, would Karen ever forgive him?

Karen stirred from her slumber and groaned. Vortex manipulator time travel really sucked. She rolled out of her bed and looked at her watch. Half past seven.

She groaned again as the memory of yesterday hit her. How could Matt have acted like that?

The question was, why didn't she hate him for having done it?

Jack stirred from his slumber and groaned. Cheap booze really sucked. He rolled out of his bed and looked at his manipulator readout. Half past seven.

He groaned again as the memory of yesterday hit him. How could he possibly have thought that, just because that girl wore that ridiculously short skirt, she'd've been interested in a date?

The question was, would he have the guts to try again?

After breakfast (which had been a stonily silent affair), Karen was brushing her hair when there came a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"It's me, Matt," came the reply.

Taking a deep breath and plastering onto her face the most pleasant smile she could come up with, Karen opened the door.

Matt stood sheepishly outside. "Could I…uh…come in?" he asked. "I'm sober now," he added helpfully.

Karen shook her head and laughed. "Yeah, why not?" she said.

And so in stepped Matt.

Jack was cleaning his razor when there came a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"It's me, Becky," came the reply.

Taking a deep breath and plastering onto his face the most pleasant smile he could come up with, Jack opened the door.

Becky (the blonde girl from last night) stood sheepishly outside. "Could I…uh…come in?" she asked.

Jack laughed. "Yeah, why not?" he said.

And so in stepped Becky.

Karen motioned to the wooden chair sitting next to the bed, and Matt lowered himself uneasily onto it. He and Karen looked at each other for a few seconds. Then, he spoke.

"I just wanted to…apologise, for last night," he said. "I was drunk, as you might have noticed. I didn't go about expressing myself very well."

"Too right," muttered Karen under her breath. Matt didn't notice.

"There is one thing I would emphasise, though."

"And what's that?"

"That every word I said last night is one hundred per cent true."

Karen's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you're not just saying that to exonerate yourself?"

Matt cracked a tiny grin. "That's not the primary purpose of saying it. But it would be nice, yeah."

She couldn't help herself. Karen laughed out loud. "Of course I forgive you, you big lummox!"

Matt's grin broadened. "Then will you let me make it up to you? Dinner? Back home? Some fancy Michelin-star restaurant?"

"It's tempting."

"Will this help you decide?"

Matt leant over the bed and gave Karen a peck on the cheek.

"I think I need more convincing," she said. Matt responded with a longer kiss on the lips.

"Well?" he said when they broke apart.

"OK."

And things worked out OK for Jack, too. Ahem.

General sightseeing will never be remarkable enough to remark upon in a novel (unless, of course, you're sightseeing around Gallifrey, in which case it's wholly remarkable). Hence, we'll skip ahead to 1944hrs that night. All ten travellers were standing at Westminster Embankment tapping their feet.

"Definitely quarter to eight, yeah?" said Amy.

Jack looked at his manipulator once again. "That's what the tachyon signal said."

"What are tachyons, anyway?" asked Arthur.

"They're tiny subatomic particles that travel faster than the speed of light, hence backwards in time. Basically, you can send a pattern of them that can be picked up by the manipulator and translated into a message."

"I see," said Arthur unconvincingly.

As if on cue, the leaves around their feet started rustling and, with the groan of ancient engines, the TARDIS heaved into existence. The doors popped inwards and out darted the Doctor.

"Hello, everybody!" he said with childlike enthusiasm. "How was it in 1972? What did you all get up to?"

Jack, Matt and Karen all looked at the ground sheepishly, whilst the rest couldn't decide whether to nod excitedly at the Doctor or steal curious glances at Jack, Matt and Karen.

The Doctor noticed this last (as usual) and look quizzically at the three. "Now, I'd understand why Jack would look sheepish, but why would you two…oh. Oh, I see."

"Yep," confirmed Matt grimly.

"Jack didn't…y'know…the three of you…" asked the Doctor weakly.

Jack's head snapped up. "Oh, good golly, no! I wouldn't do that to them!" he exclaimed. "At least, not upon first meeting…" he muttered under his breath.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Right, ahem, anyway, shall we?"

All ten entered the TARDIS, Jack closing the doors behind him. The Time Lord amongst them clapped his hands once and swung round again to face them.

"Now, I'm going to show you all a rather dinky feature of the TARDIS that saves time on return journeys. It's called…"

"…the vector reverser," finished River.

"…the vector reverser! What?" said the Doctor, getting all put out.

"It's not my first day in the TARDIS, you know, Doctor," said River.

"Ah, of course." The Doctor was still pretty deflated. "Shall I just press the button, then?"

"I think you better had."

He did so, and the TARDIS jolted them all off their feet.

Back in the present, the TARDIS faded once more into existence in front of Broadcasting House, and the twelve travellers stepped out.

Straight into a mob of fangirls.

"IT'S THEM!" they screamed.

"Back entrance! Run!" yelled Arthur, and they all pelted down the service road around Broadcasting House.

Karen stole a glance behind them, and the fangirls were keeping up. In fact…were they gaining? Yes, they were!

She looked all around her for another way of escape, but there was none.

Then, time seemed to slow to a standstill for her as her brain registered the only possible course of action.

She turned to the others who were all behind her, and uttered the words that probably saved their lives.

"I've got your backs, kids."

Then, she slowed down to a standstill and let the others overtake her. They skidded to a halt as well and turned to her incredulously.

"You can't!" exclaimed Matt. "You'll be devoured!"

Karen walked up to him and planted a kiss right on his lips, then broke off.

"Go," she said. "Save yourselves. I'll be all right." She grinned ruefully, and gave Matt a little shove.

Looking back all the time, the rest uneasily kept running.

Karen took a deep breath and turned to face the oncoming mob.

"Here goes," she said inwardly, and braced herself for the inevitable.

In the distance, Matt, Arthur and Alex let out strangled sobs at the noises that echoed all round the service road.

"She was a kind, wonderful, amazing actress," said Matt, holding back tears.

Billie laughed hysterically, causing the others to all look at her, hurt.

"Guys, get a grip! They're fangirls, not bleeding Daleks!"

They waited at the back entrance for Karen until nightfall. Matt stood uneasily, waiting to see what state she would be in when she arrived.

A figure limped round the corner ahead of them, and, indeed, it was Karen. Blood ran down her face in small streams. A black eye glistened menacingly. Her clothes were in tatters.

Matt cleared the image he _expected_ to see out of his mind and focused instead on the reality. Karen walked normally, massaging her wrist.

"You will not believe what pure writer's cramp feels like," she said in a venomous voice.

"Come on, Karen," said Alex, "we've all experienced it. It's not _that_ bad."

"It's not that bad, no. Except for when you signed three thousand, four hundred and ninety-two fan posters. Nope, sorry…" She dug a poster out of her pocket. "Three thousand, four hundred and ninety-three. I thought I might as well keep one for myself."

"You counted?" asked Matt incredulously.

"Oh yeah."

"Wow."

Awkward silence.

"Shall we go inside?" asked the Doctor finally.

"Yeah, why not?"

And inside they went.

Upon reflection, the Doctor would say he was quite arrogant at this point. Even more than usual (which is saying something). Either way, they broke into the back door, and River tapped the Doctor on the shoulder.

"Don't you think we should scan for Daleks?" she asked.

"Nah," dismissed the Doctor. "We're perfectly safe…"

They rounded the corner.

"…ish."

**Competition time again! The first person who can tell me which operating system the TARDIS seems to run on in this chapter will get a mention at the top. If you review, you'll get a clue that could help. So get to it!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Faster update this time, at least. Before I start, though, I have to extend my thanks to SuperFunkyGirl1 (Olivia Edwards) who makes an appearance in this chapter. Why her? you ask. Because she's been so helpful in the conceptualisation of this fic, has listened patiently whilst I blithered on about plot ideas, and then told me to wise up when I had outlandish ones. So enjoy! **

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Halt!" rasped one Dalek. "Do not attempt to use your weapons!"

River, Rose and Jack sighed, took their hands out from their inside pockets.

"You will be taken to the command centre! Move!"

It waved its sucker cup menacingly. The group took the point, and followed two other Daleks down the corridor.

Whilst they were walking, the Doctor turned to Amy.

"I'll think of something," he said in a low voice. "Pass it on."

She did.

Very soon, the Daleks in front halted in front of a door.

"Enter!" one of them screeched. Looking at it, the Doctor did so.

Very unusually, he gasped.

The Daleks had cracked transdimensional engineering.

Crammed inside that tiny office was a huge chamber, filled to the brim with Daleks. At the centre stood a giant white Dalek, yellow eyestalk glowing evilly. This appendage lowered, the iris narrowing as it trained its gaze upon the Time Lord.

"So, Doctor, we meet again," came its booming voice.

"Supreme Dalek. It's been a while," said the Doctor grimly.

"The Daleks have waited long for this moment, Doctor. The moment when, once again, you are firmly in our grasp. And this time, Davros will not meddle with our plan!"

"Too right."

"There is one further difference between the two situations, Doctor."

The Doctor laughed. "And what's that?"

"This time, you are completely powerless to stop us!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you said that the last time." The Doctor started pacing up and down the room. "I think it's time you let me do some of the talking, eh?"

"You shall not speak unless the Supreme Dalek permits, or you will be…" The Dalek was silenced by the Doctor's special 'shush'.

"Thank you. Right, from the looks of things, you've been experimenting with transdimensional engineering, but it hasn't gone very well, has it? You've fallen through one of the cracks, and ended up in a parallel dimension. Then, upon basic scans, you've found the BBC, home to tons of information about you, me, the TARDIS, and everything, so you figure it's a good place to set up shop, as it were."

He was getting into his stride now. "But you lot don't have enough power to get home, so you decide to camp out here. That does beg the question, however, why waste all this power keeping the rift generator going?"

"It is strategically unwise to reveal our plan to you, Doctor, so we will not!"

"Oh, come on, what have you got to lose?" The Doctor was getting a little angry now.

"I no longer have a concept of patience, Doctor, but if I did, you would be trying it!" Even if he didn't have patience, the Supreme Dalek's voice was rising in anger.

"What you gonna do? Shoot me with your humongous gun arm that doesn't even work anyway?"

Silence, broken up only by the beeps and hums from the equipment surrounding them.

"I think that the Doctor needs a little motivation."

The Time Lord's blood ran cold. "What do you mean, motivation?"

"When the Doctor needs motivation, he needs lives at stake. Innocent lives. Like this one."

With a flash and a zap, a figure was deposited unceremoniously on the floor. She lay there for a couple of seconds, then tentatively raised her head.

"Let me guess," she said. "Dalek warship?"

"Nearly right," said the Doctor, "Dalek control room. Sorry, but who are you?"

The figure stood up and straightened her jacket. "Name's Olivia. Olivia Edwards. But call my Livvy. Olivia's too formal. No need to introduce yourself, Doctor." She then noticed his doppelganger standing to the side. "Or is _that_ the Doctor? Which one of you is Flesh?"

"Neither, actually. He's an actor. Matt Smith, you call him."

Olivia's brusque demeanour ceased at that instant, and she grinned, perhaps a little shyly.

"Hi," she said in a strange, high-pitched voice.

"Hi," said Matt.

"Could we get back to the point, please?" said Rory. "What do the Daleks want?"

"You will help us, Doctor," said the Supreme Dalek, "Help us return to our dimension. If you do not, we will exterminate you all, starting with _her_."

Olivia raised her hand. "Uh, question? If Chief Pepperpot wants _your_ help to get him and all his little pepperpots back to…_their_ dimension, then why did he bring _me_ here? I'm no use, surely? Unless they want _tea_ or something…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Tea?"

"D'you not remember the Cabinet War Rooms?"

"Let me guess. You're a fangirl, aren't you? You know all about me, too, don't you?"

"Not quite as _rabid_ as the other lot outside, but probably just as devoted, yeah."

"Hang on!" said Karen. "How do _you_ know about the fangirls outside?"

"It's on the news!" Olivia replied. "Apparently they saw a bunch of Daleks rolling around outside, and that attracted a huge crowd. And huge crowds attract the media. They're probably on their way up as we speak."

"We will be discovered!" rasped a Dalek, seemingly the second in command.

"Our control room must not be breached!" roared the Supreme Dalek. "Seek, locate, annihilate!"

"I thought they'd given up on that cliché," Olivia muttered to the group behind her.

"Apparently not," said River.

Three Dalek drones exited the control room.

"Raise communications barrier!" barked the Supreme Dalek.

A holographic screen shimmered into view over a blank wall to show a corridor bathed in a green glow.

"The green glow comes from the Dalek eyestalk," explained the Doctor. "Ever noticed how it's green inside the orange? Well this is what it sees."

A crowd of cameras, microphones and reporters came into view on the screen, and all the humanoids in the room let out a small gasp.

"Don't do it, Supreme Dalek! Don't do it!" yelled the Doctor.

"Exterminate!" said the Supreme Dalek.

On the screen, three rays leapt out from below the field of vision and struck the front most cameramen. Their skeletons lit up from the energy, before disappearing as they crumpled to the ground. A fit of screaming, albeit tinny from the rubbish speakers, pierced the air, followed by more shooting and dying. It was over in a flash.

Anger coursed through the Doctor's veins, the deepest anger he'd felt since the Time War.

"That was complete, cold-blooded _murder_!" he spat. "They were defenceless! They didn't provoke you! They didn't even attempt to defend themselves!"

"Were our control room to be discovered, it could have jeopardised our mission," stated the Supreme Dalek. "Their deaths were necessary to preserve secrecy."

Suddenly, from the speakers came the voice of one of the Dalek drones. "Alert! Inbound transmat beam detected!"

Onscreen, five figures in black commando gear flashed into existence, each holding a large assault rifle. Three of them fired, fat laser beams crackling through the air towards the screen. The screen exploded into snow.

"And that would be the cavalry!" grinned Olivia.

"Explain! Explain!" screeched the Supreme Dalek.

"With the greatest of pleasure, O Big Cheese," said Jack, stepping forward. "As soon as you raised your communications barrier, I contacted my boys and girls back at Torchwood."

"You will be exterminated!" cried the Supreme Dalek. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

One of the Daleks flanking him fired upon Jack, lighting him up like a neon Santa. He collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"No!" yelled Rory, dashing over to Jack's prone form. He bent down and checked for breathing, then felt for a pulse.

"No breathing, no pulse," he said. "Beginning CPR."

"No, Rory, just leave him," said the Doctor.

"We _can't_ just leave him!" snapped Rory. "How do you expect a nurse just to let somebody die?"

"Because he's not dead."

Jack threw himself forward with a gasp.

"I'd forgotten that getting exterminated must be one of the worst possible ways to die," he said, rubbing the spot where the Dalek ray had struck.

Rory, meanwhile, was flabbergasted. "How did he…I mean, he was…"

"Dead?" said Olivia. "Yeah. Long story. Basically, he's now a fixed point in time. He can't _not_ exist. If that makes sense."

"Not really. How can somebody not be able to die?"

"I'll explain later," said the Doctor, clapping Rory on the shoulder. "But for now, we need to turn our attention back to the monitor screen, because I think that the Supreme Dalek will find that, were he to activate the north corridor cameras, he'd be in for a nasty shock."

"Activate north corridor camera one!" said the Supreme Dalek.

The humans gave a cheer, for in the corridor, marching up in a sea of black uniforms and red berets, was UNIT.

"Engage Torchwood and UNIT! Exterminate them all!" yelled the Supreme Dalek.

"We obey!" intoned the Daleks, and all but two Dalek drones left the control room, meaning a flock of thirty-six Daleks made their way to the corridors.

Whilst the Supreme Dalek was being hooked up to the battle computer, Jack, having recovered, tapped the Doctor on the shoulder.

"There's only two of 'em, Doctor. We could take 'em, and then we'd be able to make a run for it. What do you say?"

"I say that _one_ of those Daleks on its _own_ with an inoperative gun and compromised shield density could kill us with only slightly more difficulty than those ones there!"

"But the full might of the Dalek Empire couldn't kill me," said Jack, and with that he was off.

Everyone watched, heart in mouth, as Jack pounded along the concrete towards one of the Dalek drones. Without slowing at all, he dropped his shoulder and drove it into the Dalek, sending it reeling along the ground. It crashed into the wall, sparks cascading down from the controls and bouncing off its casing before promptly exploding into a mushy green and red mess.

The other drone turned. "Exterminate!" it screeched.

"Exterminate this!" shouted Olivia.

She had pinched River's alpha meson blaster and was training it on the other drone when she spoke. Now, though, she fired. The muzzle of the gun peeled back on itself to reveal a glowing blue orb, which then was ejected at high speed from the middle of the gun. It attached itself to the casing of the Dalek, emitted a high-pitched beeping, then exploded.

The resulting explosion was bigger than all the explosions previously mentioned put together. The shockwave was visible, knifing its way through everything in its path. Jack was flung away like a ragdoll, bouncing off the far wall and ending up at Olivia's feet.

She stood, stunned, for a couple of seconds, before closing up the front of the gun and handing it back to River wordlessly.

"I didn't know it was going to do that," she said simply.

"Which button did you _press_?" Jack asked, staggering to his feet.

"The full power overdrive button," said River, staring glumly at the empty magazine. "It jettisons the power cell and ignites it. I'm going to have to buy a new one, now. And they're NOT CHEAP," she added, looking at Olivia pointedly.

"How much do they cost?" Olivia asked.

"About fifty thousand credits," said River, matter-of-factly.

Jack and the Doctor both choked at the same time. "Are you serious?" said Jack. "I didn't realise they were as expensive as _that_!"

"What does that equate to in pounds?" asked Amy.

"Uh…about a grand."

Now Olivia choked. "Oh. Sorry, then, River." Then, as an afterthought: "At least it saved Jack a life."

"But the explosion nearly cost me one, anyway," said Jack, wincing.

"Annnnnnd sorry about that, too," she added.

The light on the end of the Supreme Dalek's eyestalk flickered on and off, and the Doctor started shooing everybody out.

"Come on, everyone, let's get out of here before he…"

The Supreme Dalek's gun stalk swivelled to bear, and shot the Doctor in the back before it sank slowly towards the ground.

"…shoots."

The Doctor crumpled to the ground.

Dead.

**Please read and review…if you can bear to after what I've done. Don't worry – the Doctor will come back to life. Probably. Maybe. Actually, I don't know for sure. You never know.**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I know, I know, another _unearthly_ delay (see what I did there?), but hopefully you'll like it. Please R&R!**

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Doctor!" screamed Amy, and rushed towards him, catching him before he hit the ground. "Please tell me you're alive this time, too!"

River bent down next to her and looked him all over, peering into both eyes just to check. She felt for a pulse, then sighed.

"I'm afraid he's gone," she said simply.

"He'll regenerate, right? Wake up with a different face?" said Rory hopefully. River shook her head.

"If the Doctor dies instantly before he can regenerate or, indeed, gets shot during his regeneration cycle, it is theoretically possible to kill him dead."

"And a Dalek can kill him before he can regenerate," added Rose, earning herself a withering look from Amy.

"I can't believe he's gone," stated Olivia. "I only got to meet him for five minutes!"

"Is that all you care about?" spat Amy, "The tiny amount you got to spend with him?"

"Hey! It wasn't me who tried to shoot a little girl with a revolver!" she retorted.

"Everyone, SHUT UP!" yelled Jack. "Acting like the spoiled brats we are isn't going to bring him back!"

Silence echoed around the room for an uncomfortable few seconds. Then Olivia extended her hand to Amy.

"Sorry," she said. Amy shook it.

"Same to you."

"So, what now?" asked Rory.

All eyes turned to Olivia. She looked around her.

"What? Why me?"

"You seem to know the most about all of this, so I think you should lead us."

"But I'm not the Doctor," Olivia pointed out, "just an avid fan. I think _Matt_ should lead us."

Gazes shifted to Matt, who cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Um, in case you didn't notice, folks, I'm not actually the Doctor. I'm just somebody paid to pretend to be him."

"But you've played the role for so long that surely you could think like him by now?" furthered Olivia. "Who's with me on this?"

There were murmurs of agreement.

"That's not to say, though, that I haven't been formulating a plan of my own. I'll keep you posted as it develops."

"Well, what have you got so far?" asked Amy.

"The Doctor won't die."

"Short and to the point…" muttered Steven.

"Shut up, Moffat," snapped Olivia.

Steven looked taken aback. "What?"

"I said shut up. Now, let's just get on with the plan. Matt, where to next?"

"Um, well, ur…" he stuttered.

"Oh, very well, then," said Olivia, "let's go and see the fireworks, shall we?"

hr

Outside, in the corridor, the firefight to end all fire fights was raging. Torchwood had come prepared, all of them using the biggest, most power laser weapons they could get their hands on. And, sure enough, they were ripping the Daleks to shreds. Only trouble was, the laser weapons took forever to reload, so the Daleks were scoring a few kills, too. However, then there was UNIT.

UNIT was defeating the Daleks by sheer numbers alone. True, the Daleks' energy shielding could stop a bullet, but when they are being pelted by hundreds of bullets at once…you get results.

It's always interesting to watch these battles unfold because what began as a seemingly impossible task suddenly became a whole lot more possible. What began as ants attacking an M1 tank became the cream of humanity bringing down the might of the Daleks. What began as peashooters against field guns became an evenly-matched battle. What began as…anyway, you get the picture.

Either way, very soon, the Daleks were vanquished. Olivia rounded the corner just in time to see Torchwood and UNIT zap into thin air.

"Oh, for goodness _sake_!" she yelled. "We missed all the fun!"

River walked over to the nearest Dalek and plunged her hand into the green gloop.

"Ew, gross," said Amy, grimacing along with the rest as River groped around inside. Then, she seemed to find what she was looking for, because she smiled as she pulled out a blue orb, rather similar to the one that Olivia had caused to be ejected from her blaster. She gave it a rub down on Matt's jacket (much to his dismay) and then inserted it into the top of her blaster. When pressing a button caused a blue glow to radiate from a line up the side, River let out a contented sigh.

"Thought I might get a replacement from this chap," she said.

"Remind me never to hold your blaster again, River," said Olivia.

"That's quite fine with me," came the stony reply.

"So now what? Matt?"

"Well, if we're going to bring the Doctor back, we're going to have to either cause a paradox or get time rewritten. Why doesn't River use her vortex manipulator, shoot the Supreme Dalek, and jump back again?"

River shook her head. "I would be folding back on my own personal timeline. It's hooliganism like that that causes paradoxes and time loops."

"So what? If we get the Doctor back, surely that's worth it?"

"If you know as much about this show as you claim to, you'll know that anything involving the Doctor is fixed. Just like the Silence thing was all fixed, all of this is fixed too. If we prevent it from happening, we run the risk of two minutes past five all over again."

"And it wasn't pleasant the first time, Livvy," said Amy.

"What about the rift generator? Shouldn't we really shut it down?" said Matt.

"Not if they want to get home, we don't," said Steven.

"Good point. So what _do_ we do?"

Arthur turned to Steven. "If you were writing a script, what would happen next?"

"I would use my magic 'undo' wand that the forums keep on about," said Steven, "and erase what River just said about fixed points in time."

"So River _would_ jump back in time?"

"Yes. But that's impossible, you're saying, River?"

"Impossible to survive, anyway. And if I died, that would cause an immense paradox because every meeting that the Doctor had previously would suddenly cease to be."

"So what we really need is somebody to do it who wasn't there in the first place. Somebody who wasn't involved the first time round. Somebody like…"

Before she could finish, a figure rounded the corner holding a strange beeping device in his hand that he was swinging left and right. A tiny satellite dish was spinning round and round on the top, and he had on a blue suit and brown trenchcoat.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," said Rose.

"Just when I thought this couldn't get any more complicated," muttered Olivia.

"Reverse psychology at its finest," confirmed River.

The figure noticed the group and stopped short.

"Oh! Hello. Um…you haven't seen any aliens around, have you? Strange thing to ask, I know, but given the day I've had…"

"Shall we write you a list?" asked Matt.

"You have then?" said the newcomer.

"One or two. Daleks. Weeping Angels. Sontarans."

The man suddenly became very serious. "How do you know about all them?"

"Oh, come on, Doctor, it's hardly rocket science!" said Rose, stepping forward.

The tenth Doctor (I'm sure you'd all worked that out by now) couldn't have looked more shocked if he were an actor. "Rose…" he said hollowly. "You're back."

"Basically," she said.

He caught sight of Billie, and his confusion increased. "Who's she? I mean, I can tell she's not you. No timey-wimey residue. But she looks practically identical!"

"Oh, here we go again," said Amy.

"She's an actor. Half of us are actors, and half of us are the real thing," explained Matt.

"And which are you, then?" said the Doctor.

"I'm an actor."

"Playing whom, though?"

That seemed to perplex Matt, because he hesitated a little before replying. "Well, um, you."

The Doctor screwed up his face. "You don't look much like me, to be honest, mate."

"Not _you_ per se, but…_after_…you. If you follow."

"Nope, fraid not," said the Doctor, holding the 'n' and popping the 'p' of 'nope'.

"Let me put it to you another way. If somebody is still you, but doesn't look like you, then they are…"

"…another regeneration!" said the Doctor. "But you…I mean, the person you're impersonating…must be a future regeneration, then?"

"Penny drops," said River.

"So…you all know my future, then?" said the Doctor.

"Yeah, but we're not telling you a thing!" said Amy.

"Who's she?" the Doctor asked Rose.

"Your current companion. Well, current companion in our timestream. Well, current companion in _this_ timestream, actually, if you're going to be pedantic about it," said Matt.

"I thought you were the _actor_, not _me_!" said the Doctor. "You sound like you've played me for a very, _very_ long time."

"It's been quite a while, actually, yeah."

"Well, that's good. At least I'm not having to worry about loads of bodies gone in a flash. Because that's really embarrassing. It's like, you nip off for a short journey, get stuck in an airless container for half an hour, regenerate five times, and come back again an hour later and five bodies lighter. Doesn't look good on your record, and most certainly isn't good for admin…"

"Admin?" Karen was confused.

"Oh, there's two of you, too!" exclaimed the Doctor. "In fact, there's two of everyone here. Even two Jacks. Which isn't something you want."

"Good to see you too, Doctor," said Jack.

"So, anyway, you were saying something about seeing loads and loads of aliens? Where?"

Steven stepped forward. "All over the place. The Daleks are in one of the props rooms. Well, _were_ to a certain extent now, I suppose. The Weeping Angels are goodness knows where. And to be fair, we only saw one Sontaran, and even _he_ we killed, but we're assuming there are more."

"This is serious. How did you all get here again?"

"Hole in the time vortex. We all fell through the same one."

"And presumably all of them did too?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "I'm going to bang my head off the wall in a minute if we keep on having to recap on what's going on."

The Doctor ignored her. "What were you lot doing before you bumped into me?"

"Looking for a way to stop you from dying," Olivia said nonchalantly.

"Dying? Stopping me from dying? You realise that's a paradox, don't you?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Oh if Aimee could see you now…" muttered Olivia.

"Who's Aimee?" asked the Doctor, thoroughly confused once again.

"A friend. Back to the point, if you please."

"You can't just cause paradoxes at will, you know. They have a nasty habit of ripping a hole in the fabric of reality."

"Not if you play your cards right. Not if somebody insignificant, someone expendable, were to do it."

"What are you saying, Olivia?" asked Matt.

"You'll see."

**Hope you liked, and don't forget to review! Thanks.**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I am really disappointed with myself about how long it took to get this chapter out. Hopefully, though, it was worth the wait, and I will be able to update quicker in the future. To make it up to you, this chapter's extra long.**

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nobody could convince Olivia to spill the beans on what her plan was. All they got was the answer she already gave – "You'll see." So it was highly frustrating when, after an hour of scans and searching, finding nothing, she still wouldn't divulge the information.

"I already told you my plan – the Doctor isn't going to die," she would say.

After an hour, though, Jack reckoned this was getting ridiculous. "Look, Olivia, this is getting ridiculous," he said. "We have been wandering here for an hour, seemingly in circles, and you keep us in suspense about this wonderful plan. Tell us what you've got!"

Olivia spun round, fire in her eyes. "I've got _nothing_, OK? I was lying. Buying time. Stalling. Whatever you want to call it. I needed time to make a plan, and after an hour, I've got nowhere. Right?"

A shocked and awkward silence followed. Nobody knew where to look.

But River did.

"Olivia, this isn't a game. This isn't a case of 'I've got to have the glory'. This is a case of teamwork and getting out of this together. If you had nothing, you should have said because Jack and I had a plan of our own for the last forty-five minutes. So if you've quite finished being Número Uno for now, we'll tell you our plan. First of all, we go..."

River and Jack tapped some buttons on their vortex manipulators, embraced the group in a hug, and activated them.

"...here." Everyone looked around them. They were standing in the middle of an Easyjet Airbus parked in Heathrow.

"It's an Airbus. So?" asked Olivia.

"What you probably didn't know is that the Valiant is flying right above our heads," explained River. "We needed a way to get up there, so we figured we'd pick a big, fast plane to get us there."

"And how exactly do you expect to fly it?" asked Karen.

Olivia stepped forward. "I think I can help you there."

About three hundred miles away, the author was pecking idly at his keyboard and a packet of crisps, when there came a fizzle and a flash. He swivelled found in his chair, looked bored at Jack, and turned back to his computer.

"I wondered how long you'd be," he said.

Jack looked slightly confused. "How did you know I was coming?" he asked.

"I'm writing the book, remember?" said the author. He brightened up. "Though I do now get to fly an Airbus A320."

The author breezed past everybody into the cockpit and slammed the door shut. After a second or two, it opened again.

"Ah, yes, sorry, copilot. Olivia, care to join me?"

"Why me?" asked Olivia. "Wouldn't you prefer to be in private with Karen or Amy?"

The author looked horrified. "To be frank, out of this bunch of nitwits, you're the one I trust most in the copilot's chair. Now hurry up before I disgrace myself and invite Karen into the cockpit. Oh, and Doctor, if you could join me too to ease the Valiant boys."

Olivia grinned and darted inside before the author could change his mind, closely followed by the Doctor.

"Right," he said, closing the door, "to business. Strap in and try to find the checklist and flows manual. Probably some sort of laminated ring bound jobby."

Whilst Olivia scrabbled underneath the seat, the author picked up a headset and activated the PA. "River, see if you can convince the nice chaps on the ground to give us a push, will you?"

"Found it!" said Olivia from between her knees.

"OK, before start checklist please, all of it, above and below the line."

The author prepped the cockpit, switched on the batteries and APU, and tapped his takeoff data into the flight management and guidance computer, all whilst performing the tasks Olivia read out from the checklist.

On the ground, the tug driver was sipping a cup of tea until River appeared and shoved her blaster in his face.

"Hello, sweetie," she said. "Be a good man and give us a push, will you?"

Just as the before start checklist was completed, the whole plane gave a lurch and the NW STRG DISC memo appeared on the screen in front of the author. "Here we go, everybody."

He flicked on the seatbelt signs and adjusted his own harness. "Starting engine two," he announced, then lifted the master switch. With a whirr and slight buzz, the engine whooshed into life. "Starting engine one," he then said, followed by the other master switch.

Back on the ground, the tug driver disconnected from the nose gear and floored the tug towards the terminal. "Stop them!" he screamed into his radio. "Stop them!"

The author and Olivia finished the after start checklist and controls checks, and arrived at the 27L hold. "Heathrow Tower, good afternoon, Blackcat Zero One is type Airbus A320. Requesting immediate departure to remain in pattern, priority cargo on board." The author glanced at Olivia. "Pull on a headset and deal with these lunatics, will you?" he said. "I need to fly the plane."

Olivia caught the tail end of the radio call. "_...repeat, negative, you do not have clearance. State your intentions._"

She looked around her. "Umm...Blackcat Zero One, this is an emergency flight of the utmost importance, repeat request for departure."

The author looked surprised. "Nice call! Let me get the lights, and we'll be on our way."

He flipped on the landing lights, strobe lights and turned off the APU as Olivia got the radio call she wanted. "_Blackcat Zero One, cleared as filed. Fly runway heading until three thousand, then state intentions._"

"Thanks, guys. Blackcat Zero One, over and out."

"No, no," winced the author. "You don't say that. Listen, you've got an important job, now. When the little blue numbers on the side of the airspeed correspond to what our airspeed is, you tell me. So, when you see a little number one, say 'V1'. OK?"

Olivia nodded, now slightly uncertain. "And what if I muck up?"

"Then I'll have to work it out for myself, but it would be better if you didn't."

And with that, the author switched on the landing lights, strobe lights and runway turnoff lights, and taxied out onto the runway.

"All righty, then, you strapped in?" he asked.

"Yep," came the reply from his copilot.

"Can't I do anything?" asked the Doctor. "You haven't spoken to me since I came in here."

"Well I'll speak to you now," said the author. "Shut up and let me fly this plane!"

He flicked on the PA as the Doctor sat back, offended. "We're about to go, folks, so buckle up." He toggled the seatbelt signs on and off to make the point.

Suddenly, the radio burst into life. "_Blackcat Zero One, cleared for takeoff. Please either depart immediately or else vacate the runway. There is a 747 on established behind you, range one nautical mile!_"

The author muttered something under his breath about why the tower cleared him to enter in the first place, then, but looked across at Olivia. "Let's do this. Hand on throttles, please. Any reason why we shouldn't take off, you pull those throttles back to idle, OK?"

She nodded, and the author advanced the throttles to full, both he and Olivia grinning as the thrust from the twin CFM jet engines pressed them back into their seats. "Airspeed's alive," he said. Olivia nodded. "Eighty knots."

"V1," Olivia said shortly. The author nodded. "Vr."

With an ever-broadening grin, the author pulled back on his sidestick and lifted the nose to 15 degrees nose-up. Behind him, he heard the 747 applying maximum reverse thrust and the brakes squealing.

"Sorry," he called over his shoulder at nobody in particular. The aircraft rose into the air, and he heard a muted cheer from the passenger cabin behind him.

"Positive climb rate, gear up," he said, and looked slightly surprised as Olivia lifted the gear lever.

"What?" she said. "It says 'landing gear' in big letters, and so I figured that was the one."

The author laughed and shook his head. The radio crackled into life again. "_Blackcat Zero One, turn left heading one-four-zero following Midhurst Three Golf departure, contact London Control on one-three-three-decimal-one-seven-five, and Godspeed_."

"Going to London Control on one-three-three-decimal-one-seven-five and following the Midhurst three-golf departure, Blackcat Zero One. Thanks for your service, bye bye."

In the passenger cabin, River looked across at Karen and grinned. "Who'd've thought it, eh? A sixteen-year-old flying us in an Airbus to the Valiant?"

Karen sat back in her seat and laughed. "I know, it's crazy, right? He's kinda cute, though."

Back in the cockpit, the flaps clunked into their retracted position as the after takeoff checklist drew to a close. The author clicked on the radio again. "Blackcat Zero One, request frequency change to Valiant Approach, codeword Buffalo."

"_Blackcat Zero One, frequency changed approved, bye bye_."

He double-pressed the transmit button and flicked to the standby frequency obtained from the Tenth Doctor. "Valiant Approach, good afternoon, Blackcat Zero One with you at four thousand, codeword Buffalo."

There was a slight pause, then the reply came back. "_Blackcat Zero One, boy are we glad to hear that codeword! Valiant is at flight level one one zero, two-five miles to the southeast of your position. Maintain present course and climb and maintain flight level one-five-zero._"

The author scribbled all of this down. "Maintain present course, climb and maintain flight level one-five-zero. Requesting category three ILS approach, Blackcat Zero One."

Another pause. "_Blackcat Zero One, roger. Turn right heading one-eight-zero, expect vectors ILS runway two-seven approach_."

The author tutted and turned to Olivia. "They take their own sweet time on the Valiant, don't they?" Then, into the radio, "One-eight-zero, ILS two-seven approach, Blackcat Zero One."

He sat back in his seat and glanced across at Olivia, who also was glancing across at him.

"What?" he said.

"You think I could have a go?" she asked.

"No!" the author exclaimed. "It's illegal!" He paused. "Mind you, this whole job is illegal. Oh, all right, then, let me get the autopilot."

Olivia grinned and rested her hand on the sidestick. An alarm sounded at the disengagement of the autopilot, which the author silenced.

"She's all yours," he said.

With a slight intake of breath, Olivia's hand twitched to the right, and the Airbus slowly rolled on its side and started the turn south. A huge grin split her face. "This…is…awesome!" she said.

"We're aiming for a heading of one-eight-zero, so roll out a wee bit before," explained the author.

Olivia did so, and the plane settled into a level climb again.

"Mind if I put the autopilot back on again?" asked the author, reaching for the button. Suddenly, his hand was slapped, and he withdrew it swiftly.

"Don't…you…dare!" said Olivia. "I'm having way too much fun here!"

"OK, OK," said the author. "You fly the thing, then."

And so she did.

On the other side of the inch-thick steel cockpit door, Rory happened to glance out the window just at the right moment. "Um, has anybody else seen the…the…"

"Saucer…" finished Matt.

To the side of the plane, easily matching them for pace, was a Dalek battle saucer.

Karen leapt from her seat and bolted to the cockpit door. She battered on it fiercely. "Look to the right! Look to the right!"

Inside, the author and Olivia heard the banging and a muffled voice. "What's she saying, Doctor?" asked the author.

He listened. "I think she's saying look to the right."

They did, and the author's eyes widened.

"What?" he said. "I didn't write this!"

Before anybody could question how on earth something not meant to be in the book actually appeared, the saucer opened fire. A fat red laser tore into engine 2, the shockwave rolling the aeroplane onto its left side. The author wrestled for control, fighting to stop the seemingly inevitable nosedive.

"Come on, girl, come on!" he said through gritted teeth.

It was no use. The nose slewed left, and suddenly they were plunging out of the sky, hurtling towards the ground at speeds well in excess of three hundred miles per hour. Alarms were sounding everywhere, and the whole aircraft was shaking.

"The elevators aren't responding!" yelled the author, trying all the elevator computers in turn. "Check the fuse board behind you!"

Olivia craned round, and saw that a couple of the fuses had popped loose. She pushed them back in. "Anything different?"

"No!" he yelled. "Keep trying!"

Then, she noticed it. One of the fuse holes was empty.

"One of them's fallen out completely!" she said. "It's not there!"

"Well, you've got to look for it!" the author shouted again, glancing nervously at the ever-decreasing altimeter.

Olivia swallowed, then unclipped her harness. She clutched the centre pedestal for all she was worth and used it to drag herself round to the back of her seat.

"Four thousand!" called the author.

She searched frantically, but it was too dark underneath the seat. "I can't see!" she yelled.

A tubular object was pressed into her hand. "Use this," said a soft voice.

Olivia felt a button and pressed it. A little blue light glowed from the tip, and it buzzed. She grinned, and used the sonic screwdriver to illuminate the underside of the seat.

"Three thousand!" yelled the author.

"Found it!" called Olivia almost simultaneously. She scrambled to her feet and pressed it into the board. "Try now!"

The author pulled back on the stick, and the aircraft's nose began to lift. Suddenly, there was a bang, and a tiny puff of smoke escaped the fuse capsule.

"That can't have been it!" said the author. "It must have been too small a fuse. Try again! Two thousand!"

Once again, Olivia surveyed underneath the seat. "Here's another one!" she said. "Let's hope this one works!"

"So do I!" said the author. "One-five."

The fuse slotted into the board with a satisfying click. All in the plane held their breath.

Then, the nose lifted, and the plane levelled off.

There was a muffled cheer from the other side of the door, and the three people in the cockpit all started laughing with sheer relief.

"You did it!" said the Doctor, sweeping Olivia into a hug.

"No," she said as she was released again. "_We_ did it. You gave me the light, he flew the plane, and I found the fuse. We couldn't have done it without any one of us."

She slipped into her seat and pulled on a headset. "Valiant Tower, Blackcat Zero One. Sorry about that, we had a situation with a Dalek saucer. We're climbing now with only one engine. Can you do anything about him?"

"_Blackcat Zero One, affirm. We have eliminated the target. No other threats in area. Cleared for the approach._"

The author smiled ruefully. "This puts a bad crosswind in perspective, I can tell you."

After a perfectly uneventful approach and landing, the plane was on the tarmac just off one of the Valiant's runways. Arthur was the first to the door, and turned to everyone in the cabin. "I'll open the door," he said, and pulled the handle.

With a bang and the rushing of expanding gases, the door opened and a grey mass of rubber unfolded and expanded below him, completely enveloping the airstairs provided for them.

"Nicely done, Arthur," said Matt. "You've just given them a great first impression of the setup we've got going here."

"Look, I've never been an air steward before, all right? So how was I supposed to know that the slide was going to open?"

From underneath the slide came a muffled voice. "Brigadier…Matthew…Ferguson…oh, for goodness sake, _get this thing off me!_"

"Sorry," offered Arthur lamely.

The slide was swiftly cut away by one or two UNIT soldiers, and Brigadier Ferguson was soon standing atop the steps.

"We're very pleased to see you all," he said. "We've been having awful bother with the Daleks and whatnot." He paused, and peered hopefully inside. "Is the Doctor on board, then?" he asked.

The man in question appeared in the doorway, but something happened. The briefest look of confusion passed over his face, disappearing almost as quickly as it appeared.

"What did you say your name was?" asked the Doctor.

"Brigadier Matthew Ferguson," replied the Brigadier. "Good to finally meet you, Doctor."

A pause. Then, said the Doctor in a strange voice, "Pleasure."

He pushed past everybody at the top of the steps and marched down them. After a confused silence, the rest of the passengers followed, the author and Olivia close behind.

"What was that all about?" asked Olivia.

"I don't know," replied the author. "None of this was written. So whatever's going on must be extremely powerful to change the written word."

Behind them, Brigadier Ferguson lifted his cuff to his mouth.

"We're coming in," he said.

**Please leave a review…that is if you don't hate me. Oh, yes, nearly forgot – I'm going to start a new fic as well and try to alternate chapters of this and it. I haven't decided on a title, yet, but it'll be another Doctor Who one. Technically speaking, it'll be AU, but with HUGE changes.**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: What a horrendous state of affairs one finds oneself in when one takes exams. Well, I can only apologise, and hope that this extra-long chapter makes up for it. Hope it was worth the wait!**

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Brigadier explained the situation to them on the way down the stairs.

"We think that the Daleks originated from a rift generated in the main BBC building," he said.

"Been there, done that, about to close it," said Amy. "What else do you know?"

Ferguson looked flustered. "Um…well, nothing else, actually. We were hoping you could fill us in."

"So far, we've come across four different species," said River, "Daleks, Weeping Angels, Sontarans and fangirls."

The Brigadier nodded for a moment before he realised the last word. "Fangirls?" he asked. "What are they?"

"They're quite simply the most hideous creatures who ever walked the planet," said Alex, playing along. "Completely rabid, they have basic homing instincts on time travellers and people who look like time travellers."

Ferguson seemed completely taken in. "We don't have any files on them! What do they look like?"

"Humanoid," said the Doctor, having been filled in by the rest of the actors. "They look completely human until they get close, when they devour you where you stand."

The Brigadier swallowed. "Sounds terrible! What do they usually do?"

"Oh, they ask for autographs and photos and suchlike," said Karen.

This really confused Ferguson. "What?" he said.

Everybody burst out laughing. "We were pulling your leg, Brigadier!" said Stephen, the only one even remotely capable of stringing two words together to form a coherent sentence.

Ferguson looked at the ceiling and sighed. "Yes, yes, very funny," he said. "Now you will pay."

"Huh?" said Amy.

Ferguson swung up a slightly oversized blaster pistol and fired it down the corridor. A thin blue wall swept down the corridor, making each person it touched convulse, then collapse.

All except one.

"Very nicely done, Master," said the Doctor. "I was wondering when you'd take your chance."

"I thought there was something fitting about that timing," said the Brigadier before pressing one of the buttons on his cuff. His whole body flickered, then disappeared, revealing his true form. A man with blonde hair and a slightly unshaven look.

"Ah, that's bet…hold on a second…" He peeled a small piece of plastic from his Adam's apple and winced. "That's better," he said in a much more recognisable voice.

"So, what do we do with all of them?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, Doctor," said the Master. Then he paused. "No, no, of course, I should really call you by your real name, now. Well, Thomas, we throw them in a holding cell for the moment and continue as planned."

"But won't they revolt and try to break out?" asked Thomas.

"That's a good point, Thomas. We should perhaps put them in the holocell. Yes, do that, and divert fifty percent of the ship's power to it. We need to create twelve separate worlds."

* * *

In the cell, a miracle of modern technology happened.

Twelve separate worlds were beamed into twelve separate minds simultaneously, instantly grafting themselves into the very neurons of their brains. They had a complex job, though – they also had to modify memory to convince the recipient that this was the real world they were receiving and that it always had been.

Once that was done, they could wake up their subconsciouses, whilst leaving their bodies and conscious minds slumped on the floor.

And so their dreams began.

* * *

Matt woke up on the floor of his flat, an empty beer bottle in his hand. He groaned and sat up groggily, propping himself up against the sofa. What a night! Drinking heavily wasn't something he usually did, but Steve's stag do last night was something else.

After another groan, Matt hauled himself to his feet and forced himself to the kitchen, where he splashed freezing cold water onto his face, when he happened to look at his watch.

"Crap!" he yelled. "I'm late for work!"

He sprinted for his bedroom and pulled his football kit out of his wardrobe. The manager at the club liked his players to be warmed up by nine o'clock, and it was now twenty to nine.

Hopefully he wouldn't get another rollicking.

* * *

Karen's eyes opened blearily, and she blinked a couple of times. She smiled as she saw Patrick straddling her torso, his face six inches from hers.

"Good morning, Mister Green," she said.

"Good morning, Mrs Green," he said. "Did you sleep well?"

"I was exhausted!" she said.

"Excellent!" he said, bending down to kiss her. "Not a bad wedding night performance, then?"

"I wouldn't be able to judge, Patrick. I've only experienced one."

"And did it live up to your expectations?" he asked.

"Oh yes!" she said, before grasping his T-shirt and pulling him back on top of her hungrily.

* * *

Amy's eyes opened blearily, and she rolled over in the bed. At the same time, the man on the other side rolled over and smiled at her.

"Another satisfied customer?" she asked. The man nodded.

"Another satisfied customer," he confirmed, and kissed her gently.

She rolled out of the bed and began gathering up the nurse's outfit strewn all around the place. "I should really be getting on."

"Oh, don't go!" said the man, leaping out of the bed. "At least stay and have breakfast."

Amy hesitated. "Oh, all right, then. How long?"

The man's eyes flicked up and down her body. "That entirely depends on you."

* * *

Arthur yawned and decided it was probably high time to go to bed. He glanced at the computer clock, and was slightly shocked to discover it was morning. He'd been gaming all night.

He grimaced, reached for the caffeine tablets and downed two with a gulp of Coke. Work beckoned.

After giving himself a rub over in the shower, he donned his jeans and a pullover, slipped his Organmaster shoes into a bag, and lifted the keys to the organ. He had to have Widor's Toccata back up to scratch for Wednesday, and it was Monday today.

Mind you, that was the most stress you got as an organist.

* * *

Rory woke with a start. The bus conductor was tapping him on the shoulder.

"Here, Rory, you dropped off again!" he said. "This is the hospital! Get a move on!"

"Sorry, sorry," he said, and leapt from his seat. "Thanks."

As he got off, he noticed Amy Pond walking down the street, and he nearly said hello. But he caught himself just before he made a fool of himself.

"Out of my league," he said. "Totally out of my league."

* * *

"And cut! That's a wrap!" called the director.

Alex grinned and put the defibrillator pads back in their holders. "That was all right that time, then, was it?" she asked.

"Sublime acting as always, Doctor Corday," he said. "Now, hurry and get changed, will you? They're expecting you on stage six in ten minutes."

She grinned and jogged for the costume department. It was great fun working on _ER_.

* * *

"Perfect!" said the technician. "Let's send that one down to the mastering department."

Billie smiled and slipped her earphones off. "Hopefully I didn't give the autotuner too much work to do?"

"Nope, that was just divine," the technician said. "Let's take bridge B from the top, can we? Music!"

* * *

Rose's alarm clock buzzed into life, and she rolled out of bed almost instantaneously. She hadn't really been sleeping for the past ten minutes, anyway.

After a shower, she pulled on some casual clothes and went downstairs. Jackie was already up, making the breakfast.

"Morning, love!" said Jackie, giving Rose a kiss. "At least you probably won't be late to work this time."

"Look, Mum, Henrik's was very understanding about it, especially when the bus was off," Rose said seriously, lifting a piece of toast from the other side of her mother and shoving it into her mouth.

"Oi!" laughed Jackie, "Anyone would think I'd raised an animal, what with your table manners!"

"Get like those you live with, don't you?" said Rose, laughing equally. "Bye, love you!"

* * *

Steven woke with a start. He'd fallen asleep on top of one of his scripts again. He groaned and glanced at the title page. _COUPLING, SERIES 7_. It was singularly amazing how the show was still going strong after seven series, and with the same writer, too! _But_, he supposed, _when you've got a writer like me…_

He sighed and decided it mightn't be a bad idea to get showered and changed before the readthrough.

You know what actors are like.

* * *

The author woke up on the sofa with his cat fast asleep on top of him. He rolled over without thinking about it, and the cat leapt to his feet with a yelp.

"Oh, sorry, Shadow!" said the author, and got up. School beckoned.

* * *

"Livvy? Liiiii-vvvy?" called one of Olivia's friends sitting opposite to her. The friend waved her hand in front of Olivia's face.

She sat up with a start. "Huh? What?"

Her friend laughed. "You were out for the count, Livvy! What were you thinking about?"

Olivia tried to think. She really did. But she couldn't come up with a topic of thought.

"Nothing," she said, and downed the rest of her soft drink. "Come along, there's no point in sitting here."

* * *

River woke up in her cell in Stormcage. The rain was pounding down outside as usual, and one of the guards she recognised was on corridor duty. She pretended she hadn't woken up.

"What shall I do this time?" she wondered. But then a thought hit her. "How did I get here?" she thought. "What did I do last night?" She couldn't remember. If that didn't ring alarm bells, nothing would.

She rolled out of the bed and thought harder. She definitely couldn't remember the events preceding the present. Which could only mean one thing…

* * *

"Cross it, cross it!" yelled Matt as he sprinted up left field. The ball carrier glanced across, then executed a perfect cross that sent the ball arcing over the heads of the rest of the players and straight onto Matt's chest. He exhaled loudly and tapped it slightly ahead of him, dodging around a defender in the process. Just him and the goalie now.

A great sense of calm came over him. All he could hear was his own heartbeat. He faked once to the left, then kicked as hard as he could, just letting his foot glance off the right hand side of the ball. It lifted gently into the air, curving around the goalie's outstretched glove and sizzled into the net.

The crowd went absolutely bananas. The most monumental cheer erupted from the stands. Matt was soon engulfed in a full team pile-on. Thanks to him, they'd won the league.

Not a bad day's work.

* * *

A gigantic pile of sausage, bacon, egg and other assorted fried goods was set far more gently on the table than seemed appropriate for food like that (at least in Karen's eyes), and the white-gloved waiter didn't help matters either.

"What earthly point is there to serving a full fried breakfast with white gloves?" Karen asked Patrick after the waiter left. "I mean, it's like…it's like…"

"It's like putting you in a stylish wedding dress?" offered Patrick, tongue in cheek.

"Oi, shut up!" said Karen, slapping him relatively hard on the arm. "You've to at least let the honeymoon end before you start insulting me." Then she thought for a moment. "Or you in a tuxedo…"

* * *

Amy staggered in her door, weak at the knees. That latest client certainly got his money's worth, that was for certain. She was so tired that she simply removed her outer garments and flopped onto her bed in her underwear, falling asleep a split second after she hit the pillow. Ten seconds later, though, the doorbell rang, making Amy groan and sit up. She completely forgot about dressing, and went to the door anyway. Upon opening it, the milkman's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He gave a sort of googly-eyed grin, and said "You could have just asked, love." He walked inside.

"I don't think so," said Amy firmly, and shoved the man back over the threshold by the front of his shirt. She plucked the milk bottles from the rack and slammed the door.

"Pervert," she muttered as she dumped the bottles in the fridge and returned to her resting place.

* * *

"GAH!" yelled Arthur, and shoved a coupler stop in a little too hard. "I'm never going to get that bit!"

His page turn grinned. "Yeah you will, Arthur," he said. "You've just got to practise it more!"

"I've been practising for the past hour, and I still haven't got it!" moaned Arthur, taking a swig of his water and rubbing his aching thighs. "It's trying to catch the toe piston in that one-beat rest and not hitting any others."

The page turn patted his leg and said, in a deliberately patronising manner, "There there, Arthur pet. I'm sure you'll get it soon."

He then had to duck as Arthur lazily swung the bottle of water at his head, laughing. "I'll tell them _you'll_ play it for them in a minute!"

* * *

"Come on!" yelled Rory. "We're losing him!"

He glanced concernedly at the ECG screen, and his own heart gave a lurch as he recognised the wave pattern. "He's going into V-Tach!" he shouted. The junior doctor looked mildly shell-shocked. "Come on, do something, Thompson!" he yelled again.

Still no reaction. Rory sighed and decided to take charge himself. "Someone bring a crash cart round, quickly!"

Sure enough, one arrived, and Rory eased the defibrillator paddles out of their holders. "Three hundred and fifty joules! Charging…" He rubbed the paddles together. "Lines and oxygen away! Clear!"

He pressed the paddles onto the patient's chest and clicked the buttons. The defibrillator beeped, and three hundred and fifty joules precisely of electrical energy were discharged into the patient's thoracic cavity. Some muscles spasmed, causing the patient to writhe on the table.

"No response," said Rory, watching the junior doctor pumping away at chest compressions. "Three-eighty. Charging…clear!"

Another shock, and this time the ECG readouts normalised. The patient's pulse resumed a steady rate.

Rory released the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "We did it," he said with a sigh, replacing the defibrillator paddles. The junior doctor looked uncomfortable. "I didn't exactly do a lot," he said awkwardly.

With a grin and a pat on the back, Rory reassured him. "Hey, we were all there once," he said. "Besides, yes you did. You did CPR. That keeps the patient alive long enough for the defib to do its work. Your job was just as valuable as mine."

* * *

Alex struggled into her own clothes after a long day's filming. There came a knock at the door, and with a few shirt buttons still undone, she went to answer it. It was Florian.

"What are you doing here?" she said tersely. "We're meant to be separated."

"I know," said Florian, his German accent ringing out in stark relief against Alex's London accent, "but I can't bear to be without you. Why can't we make this work?"

"Maybe you should ask yourself that," said Alex. "Now, if you'd excuse me, I've got to get dressed to get home."

Florian put his foot in the door when Alex tried to close it. "No!" he said a little too loudly. "I mean, no," he corrected, "please. Can't we just talk?"

Alex sighed, then opened the door wordlessly. Florian gratefully stepped inside.

"What do you want, Florian?" repeated Alex.

"You," said Florian, and slid his hand between her back and the shirt.

* * *

Laurence looked up from the newspaper as Billie came through the door. "Evening!" he said cheerily. "Enjoyed your day of sex with other men?"

"You know it's not like that!" giggled Billie, dumping her bag on the kitchen countertop and giving Laurence a peck. "Besides, we're neither of us even naked. We've patches and stuff."

"You're not completely patched, though," Laurence said. "I have watched the show, you know."

Billie laughed again. "Well, according to the researchers, the majority of the eighteen-to-thirty segment like seeing my, and I quote, voluptuous mounds."

"Right, change of subject, perhaps," said Laurence, pretending to cough into his newspaper. "I, myself, had a great day's filming, although we've a night shoot tomorrow night."

"Aw, worst luck," said Billie, herself slightly relieved to have ceased talking about her body parts. "What time's that at?"

"Leaving here at nine, and probably not back until the early hours, I'm afraid."

Billie smirked, and approached Laurence slowly. "Then we'll have to make tonight count."

* * *

Rose carried in two mugs of tea and a plate of biscuits and plonked them on the table next to Mickey. She handed him the cups, snuggled in, and accepted her tea gratefully.

"This is how it should be, right?" said Mickey. "Me, tea, and the best-looking girl on the estate, all on the same sofa."

"Mmm," said Rose, "how it should be."

They were content to just sit and gaze out the window at the London skyline, sipping tea. Mickey cleared his throat. "So, how's Henrik's treating you?"

"Like crap," Rose muttered darkly into her tea. "I just wish they actually valued their employees, y'know?"

"Then why don't you get a better job?" exclaimed Mickey, setting his tea down to gesticulate. "I mean, look at you. You're intelligent, you did well at school…"

"Come on, Mickey, I got one A, two Bs, four Cs and a D," Rose argued. "It's hardly outstanding."

"But you could've done A-levels if it hadn't been for that Jimmy Stone," Mickey pointed out. Rose grimaced.

"Oh, don't remind me," she said, her lip curling slightly. "I ruined my life because of him."

"You should go to night school or something," continued Mickey, wetting his throat with tea. "Get some more qualifications, get a better job."

Rose sighed. "I can't really be bothered," she said. "Story of my life, really."

Mickey pulled her close, and they sat in silence.

* * *

Steven looked up from his script a moment to take in the sight around him. Around sixty-odd people sat around the table, all reading from scripts bound by the three regulation brass fasteners that everybody demanded you use. Jack Davenport whispered something into the ear of Sarah Alexander that caused her to snort with laughter, meaning proceedings ground to a halt.

Martin Dennis, the director, looked over his glasses. "You have something you'd like to share with the class, there, Jack?"

Davenport cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh…no, no I don't."

Clearly having rehearsed this many times, Dennis continued. "Cuz from where I'm sitting, Sarah clearly thought it was hilarious, so I thought we might also experience it."

Steven was trying and failing to keep a straight face. As the screenwriter, he needed to look as if this was a major infraction. "If not, you're just disrupting everything, y'know?"

Davenport looked down sheepishly. "Sorry," he murmured.

"That's a little better," said Dennis, redirecting his gaze back to the script. "Shall we continue?"

* * *

The author reckoned that he had done enough in the story, so he decided to return to his keyboard and thus save himself writing time, much to the annoyance of the Master.

* * *

Olivia lay back in her chair, her head resting against the back wall of the classroom. Although usually thoroughly interested by Latin, something was bugging her, and she couldn't figure out what. It played on the back of her mind like one of those CDs to help you learn grammar, over and over again, repeating and repeating until it drove her insane.

A lull in the constant drone made her sit up with a start. The teacher was holding back a grin.

"Back with us are you, Livvy?" he said. "I'm sorry if conjugations don't hold the same attraction today as previously."

The rest of the class was trying not to snigger at Olivia's obvious embarrassment. "I, uh…I mean…" she tried to stammer.

"Look, just try and concentrate, will you?" said the teacher. "The last thing either of us want is a poor result in your test on Friday."

* * *

River rattled away at a keyboard attached to a mainframe computer, then double-checked some wiring. It all looked set.

She slipped a padded cuff attached to a thick coaxial cable over her arm and pressed a button. She winced as eight needles jammed into her flesh, securing the cuff onto her arm. But that meant it was mechanically working.

"Right, here goes," she said. "Geronimo!"

She hit 'Enter' on the keyboard, and felt energy surge into the cuff. As she looked around her, everything darkened, and then went to black. A thousand light bulbs went off behind her eyelids, and then she completely lost consciousness.

* * *

**Now in spite of the long time it took to arrive, please review! Thanks!**


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